East Germany, France, Spain and Soviet Union gained qualification to the Olympic tournament and Poland qualified automatically as holders.
Argentina were invited to replace them but declined and the place went to Cuba (best CONCACAF non-qualifiers).
Cuba were invited after the withdrawal of Uruguay and Argentina's refusal to replace them.
The African Qualifiers tournament for the 1976 Summer Olympics took place over a total of two rounds.
Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia qualified, but they boycotted the Olympics a day before the Opening Ceremony (alongside 31 other nations, 26 of them African) to protest the participation of New Zealand, whose rugby union team had a summer tour of South Africa in spite of the Soweto uprising.