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Updated 54 minutes
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Image source, Getty Images
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Brazil hosted and won the 2019 Copa América.
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Conmebol designated Brazil this Monday as the venue for the Copa América football match after weeks of uncertainty in which the organization of the tournament was withdrawn from Colombia and Argentina, the initial hosts of the competition.
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“CONMEBOL @CopaAmerica 2021 will be played in Brazil! The start and end dates of the tournament are confirmed. The venues and fixture will be informed by CONMEBOL in the next few hours,” said the governing body of South American football in its account of Twitter
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“CONMEBOL thanks the President @jairbolsonaro and his team, as well as the Brazilian Football Confederation @CBF_Futebol for opening the doors of that country to what is today the safest sporting event in the world,” he added.
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Hours after this announcement, the Brazilian minister of the Civil House, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, assured that “the contest is not insured.”
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“There is still nothing defined, I want to speak very clearly. We are in the middle of the process. We do not want to reject a request if we can satisfy it,” said the official, who explained that the final decision will be known this Tuesday.
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According to Ramos, it was the Brazilian Soccer Confederation that gave the go-ahead to the tournament dispute, not the national government.
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The announcement that Brazil will host the tournament has caused great controversy, for fear that it will contribute to the worsening of the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 400,000 dead and 16 million infections in the country.
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The most important national team competition on the continent was going to be held for the first time in two venues, Argentina and Colombia, but the wave of coronavirus infections ruled out Argentina, just as it happened days ago with Colombia due to the social protests that the country for more than a month.
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Brazil has already organized and won the Copa América in 2019.
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“Moment of stability”
Before Minister Ramos questioned the celebration of the tournament, the president of Conmebol, Alejandro Dominguez, he assured: “The Brazilian government demonstrated agility and decision-making capacity at a fundamental moment for South American football.”
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And he added that “Brazil is experiencing a moment of stability, it has proven infrastructure and recent and accumulated experience to organize a competition of this magnitude.”
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Image source, Getty Images
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Jair Bolsonaro celebrates Brazil’s triumph in the 2019 Copa América.
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In addition to infections and deaths, the vaccination plan in Brazil is still delayed and on Saturday there was a massive protest throughout the country against Bolsonaro’s management.
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The vice president of the country, Hamilton Mourao, said Monday that he does not expect demonstrations during the competition and that Brazil is a “less risky” choice than Argentina. No crowd is expected in stadiums, so the risk decreases, he added.
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Despite the problems in Colombia and Argentina, Conmebol does not want to cancel the tournament, which in its 2019 edition in Brazil generated income of US$ 118 millionit is.
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