With qualifiers taking place almost continually across a host of Olympic and Paralympic sports, with each passing day, the Rio 2016 Games are rapidly taking shape. With seven of the eight teams that will take part in the Paralympic football 7-a-side tournament already decided, the sport’s Rio 2016 line-up is almost complete.

The 2015 Cerebral Palsy Football World Championships held at St. George's Park, in Burton upon Trent, England, finished on Sunday (28 June) with Russia taking the title and a spot at the Paralympics. The Netherlands, Great Britain (represented by England), Ireland and the USA also went home with qualifying places for the Games, to join Ukraine (who qualified via the European 7-a-side Championship last August) and the 2016 host country, Brazil, in the battle for Paralympic glory.

Only men’s teams will be eligible for the competition at next year’s Games, and according to the sport’s qualification rules, the remaining place in the line-up will be awarded to the winner of the football 7-a-side competition at the 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto (7-15 August). However, if the Parapan winner has already qualified for the Games, the vacant Paralympic spot will be transferred to the highest placed team from the Burton upon Trent World Championships who has not already qualified – in this case, Argentina, who came 8th at the weekend and narrowly missed out on an Paralympic spot.

Of the five teams taking part in Toronto (Brazil, the USA, Argentina, Venezuela and Canada), Brazil and the USA have already qualified, leaving just three teams vying for the last remaining Paralympic ticket. If Venezuela or Canada take the title outright, they will automatically qualify. However, the teams’ recent performance histories are not on their side – in the first round of the World Championship, Canada lost to Argentina 2-0 and Brazil beat Venezuela by a crushing 6-0. As such, Argentina looks likely to lay claim to the sport's last remaining Paralympic vacancy.

Rio2016.com is not an absolute authority on qualification for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an ongoing process. Final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games). The qualification systems are defined by each sport’s respective International Federation and the International Olympic Committee or International Paralympic Committee, and are subject to change. When an athlete or team wins a quota place for their nation, the final decision on whether this ‘slot’ is used and which athletes are sent is taken by the respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee (NOC or NPC). Even when athletes win a ‘nominal’ place for themselves, NOCs/NPCs may have to decide who to send if the number of qualified athletes from one country exceeds the quota