The association football tournament at the 2011 SEA Games (Indonesian: Sepak bola di SEA Games 2011) took place from 3 to 21 November 2011.

No women's competition was held as the host nation Indonesia did not have enough stadiums to host two categories of football at the same time, but other reasons were put into consideration, such as the poor performance of the Indonesian women's national team.

[1][2][3][4][5] As a result, it was played among U-23 (under 23 years old) national teams.

This was the first time that all Southeast Asian nations participated in the football tournament at a SEA Games.

In the last week of October 2011, the Football Association of Indonesia had rescheduled the first round of matches for the group twice, originally moving it forward to 8 November and eventually to 7 November.