Where will the Copa America take place? And above all, will such take place? Nothing is certain today. The organization of the competition, which begins in two weeks (June 13 – July 10) was allocated to Brazil on Monday after the withdrawals of the Argentine and Colombian co-organizers for health reasons. But under a shower of criticism, the government announced the same evening that nothing was yet final. Confusion reigns. “There is nothing fixed for the moment, I want to make it very clear. We are in the middle of the process. But we are not going to shy away from this request if it is possible to respond to it ”, declared the secretary of the government, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, in Brasilia. He also set out the conditions: total closed session as well as restricted and all vaccinated delegations. According to him, a “final position” would be taken on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Brazilian vice-president Hamilton Mourao had however justified a choice which involves “less risk”. “The advantage is the size of our country and the number of stadiums. We can distribute the matches across the country, ”he said. According to the president of the Conmebol (South American football confederation), Alejandro Dominguez, Brazil “has the proven infrastructure and the accumulated and recent experience”, with the 2014 World Cup and the 2019 Copa America, of which it is the defending champion, “to organize a competition of this magnitude”.
An avalanche of criticism, however, came to fall, in the wake, from epidemiologists, believing that the tournament “will contribute to the resurgence of the pandemic”, and members of the opposition announcing want to seize the Supreme Court to cancel the tournament, whose host cities have not yet been defined. “Argentina have turned down the Copa America due to the worsening pandemic. There the average number of deaths over the past seven days has been 470 people … Here it has been 1,844. Four times as many. This is what a murderous government looks like, ”reacted Marcelo Freixo, opposition deputy of the Socialism and Freedom Party (left) on Twitter.
Initially, the Copa America was to be played a year earlier, co-hosted for the first time by two countries, Colombia and Argentina, before being postponed by the pandemic. Colombia brandished the Covid-19 card to hide the social rebellion in the country and asked ten days ago for a postponement of the competition that was refused by Conmebol. Then Argentina gave up on Monday to host the competition alone because “the epidemiological situation prevented us from doing so”, explained the head of the Argentinian government, Santiago Cafiero while the country beats daily contamination records.
Argentina is going through the most critical period of the pandemic with more than 41,000 people infected in 24 hours last Thursday, a record. In this context, 70% of Argentines said they were against the organization of the Copa America, according to a poll published on Friday, even if the authorities had planned to put in place a strict health protocol, in particular by limiting the size of the ten delegations. . Some players, and not the least, began to question the relevance of holding the tournament. “I am struck by the fact that the Copa America is being played despite the current situation,” said Luis Suarez, just crowned Spanish champion with Atlético Madrid, back in Uruguay to play two games on June 3 and 8. qualification for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. His compatriot Edinson Cavani (Manchester United) pointed to “terrible irresponsibility” while his captain Diego Godin asked for “guarantees and peace of mind for all” participants.
Brazil has the second deadliest death toll in the world after the United States, and only 11% of the population has received two doses of the vaccine.
–
