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Conmebol announced this Sunday that this year’s Copa America, scheduled to start on June 13, will no longer be held in Argentina. Faced with the intensification of the Covid-19 pandemic, with local authorities taking a stand against the tournament, the confederation was left with no choice and opted to suspend the organization of the games in the country. And now studying where to carry them out.
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Cancellation of the competition is not ruled out. The entity’s council will meet on an emergency basis this Monday morning, at 9 am (GMT), when there should be news about the tournament. The priority is to find a solution other than cancellation, looking for a viable place to play the games.
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– Conmebol informs that, in view of the present circumstances, it decided to suspend the organization of the Copa América in Argentina. Conmebol analyzes the offer from other countries that have shown interest in hosting the continental tournament. News in this regard will be announced soon.- said the confederation in a statement on social networks.
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Shortly before the CONMEBOL statement, Argentina’s Interior Minister, Wado de Pedro, had issued public statements indicating that the organization of the Copa América in the country would be unfeasible. He pointed out that it was “convenient” for the country to stop being the host of competition to think about the health of the population.
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– I was talking to the president about the health situations in different jurisdictions. we analyze in particular the epidemiological situation of Mendonza, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Tucumán and Santa Fé, and some of them are venues for the Copa América. Until today they are host cities, but from our health diagnosis we see how difficult it is to play in Argentina – said Pedro.
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Colombia had already ceased to be headquarters
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The impossibility of holding the Copa América in Argentina leaves Conmebol in a complicated situation, as Colombia, another original host country, had also left the organization of the competition amid the intense social problems experienced by the country in recent weeks, with waves of protests. Colombia’s departure from the tournament was made official just 10 days ago and, since then, Conmebol has been looking for solutions for the tournament.
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Protester protests against Copa América in Bogotá, Colombia — Photo: EFE/Carlos Ortega
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The governments of Ecuador and Venezuela sent official proposals to Conmebol to host the games that would be in Colombia in this year’s Copa America. In addition to the two countries, Chile also emerged as an informal candidate to share the tournament with Argentina.
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Conmebol already estimated that, without an audience and without the participation of guests Australia and Qatar, the tournament would cause a loss of US$ 30 million. If not organized, the competition would cause even greater financial damage to the South American confederation.
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Conmebol considers that the chance of taking the tournament to the United States is zero, since there would not be time to organize the logistics, including issuing visas for the delegations. In addition to the sanitary restrictions in the North American country, the relationship between Conmebol and Concacaf weighs against this hypothesis, which has been shaken since the Copa América Centenário, in 2016, which still has unresolved commercial issues until today.
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Last month, Conmebol had announced an increase in awards Copa América, with the champion earning US$ 10 million (approximately R$ 57 million), in addition to the US$ 4 million (almost R$ 23 million) that each team receives for participating in the tournament. In the previous edition, held in 2019 in Brazil, the champion won US$ 7.5 million.
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Meanwhile, the teams participating in the tournament began meeting last week, in preparation for the South American qualifiers – but also with an eye on the Copa America. This is the case of the Brazilian team, which has been working at Granja Comary since last Thursday. The technical committee was waiting for a definition of where the games would take place until next Tuesday – but even when Argentina was confirmed as one of the venues.
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