The qualifying round for the 1972 European Football Championship consisted of 32 teams divided into eight groups of four teams.

Each group winner progressed to the quarter-finals.

The quarter-finals were played in two legs on a home-and-away basis.

The winners of the quarter-finals would go through, to the final tournament.

[1] If two or more teams finished level on points after completion of the group matches, the following tie-breakers were used to determine the final ranking: There were 282 goals scored in 105 matches, for an average of 2.69 goals per match.