Iraq at the 2012 Summer Olympics Iraq at the 2012 Summer Olympics The Middle Eastern nation of Iraq competed at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, from 27 July to 12 August 2012. This was the nation's thirteenth appearance at the Olympics since its debut at the 1948 Summer Olympics in the same host city. Before the Olympic Games started, FIFA banned Iraq from hosting qualifiers in the World Cup and even in the Olympics for security concerns, and for having a player with two cards participated in a match against United Arab Emirates. Iraq also competed for the first time in Olympics without receiving
Football at the Summer Olympics football tournament. In an extreme example, two early-round venues for the 1984 Games were on the East Coast of the United States, well over from the host city of Los Angeles. The next Games held in the United States, the 1996 Games, were unique in that no matches were held in the host city of Atlanta; the nearest venue and the site of the finals was away on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. Counting the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, there are 121 venues that have hosted Olympic football, the most of any sport. For both the men's