THE path that South Africa's under-23 football side need to follow in order to qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 has been made clearer after the draw at the weekend.

The draw for the qualifiers was conducted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday.

The African representatives for the 2016 Games will be determined at the football governing body CAF's under-23 Championship, which will be hosted by the Democratic Republic of Congo next year.

The top four finishers at the eight-team tournament will go onto the Olympics but with 27 entrants into the preliminaries, teams must come through three knockout rounds to determine the seven who will join the Congolese hosts in the final tournament.

South Africa have a bye into the second round, where they await the winner of the match up between Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

Should SA get through the first hurdle, they will then take on Senegal for a place at the championship.

Critically, the game against Swaziland or Zimbabwe is played over two legs in late May, at the conclusion of the PSL season which will allow SA to have a full-strength line-up.

But the decisive qualifier against Senegal is set for mid-July (first leg) and the first weekend of August (second leg), which will disrupt pre-season preparations and could see Safa face a battle to get players released.

That is if they, as is custom, leave arrangements to the last minute.