Brazil to host Copa America amid health crisis
The South American competition will be held in the South American giant, after Colombia and Brazil declined to host the Copa América. CONMEBOL has maintained the dates for the tournament, which will take place on 13 June, and in the coming days we will know the new calendar and the new venues where the competition will be held. This was announced by CONMEBOL on its Twitter social network: "The CONMEBOL @CopaAmerica 2021 will be played in Brazil! The start and end dates of the tournament have been confirmed. The venues and fixtures will be announced by CONMEBOL in the coming hours. The oldest national team tournament in the world will thrill the entire continent! ".
Colombia was the first country to withdraw due to the political situation they are facing, where they have been protesting for a month against the government of Ivan Duque. The president of Argentina, upon learning of the Colombian government's decision, made a statement on the matter and stressed that they would be willing to be the only hosts of the competition, knowing that Argentina at that time was at its worst moment of the pandemic. A few hours after the president's statement, the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo de Pedro, commented in a radio interview that it was very difficult to host the competition in Argentina. 11 minutes after the statement, CONMEBOL announced that it would not be played in Argentina, "CONMEBOL informs that in view of the current circumstances it has decided to suspend the organisation of the Copa América in Argentina", the communiqué said.
At first glance, the most reasonable thing to do was to play the competition in Chile and Paraguay, which are the CONMEBOL headquarters, in the event that it was decided not to cancel the meeting, but the South American federation decided to give the responsibility to a country that currently has 460,000 deaths caused by the coronavirus, and that only during the month of May 4,000 died. To all this health problem facing Brazil, we can add the arrival of the Indian strain within its territory, as a result of the Bolsonaro administration's poor border control policies. Currently only 10% of the population has received the full doses, epidemiologists predict that the situation could worsen in June and July during the Copa America, as this competition requires the movement of thousands of football players around the world, where most of them do not have the doses of the vaccines administered. CONMEBOL decided to grant the Brazilian Football Confederation 5,000 doses to immunise athletes, delegations and the Brazilian national team.
CONMEBOL President Alejandro Dominguez said: "The Brazilian government has shown agility and decisiveness at a fundamental moment for South American football. .... Brazil is living a moment of stability, it has the proven infrastructure and accumulated and recent experience to organise a competition of this magnitude". The competition is expected to have no public in the stadiums, said the country's vice-president Hamilton Mourao, who added that Brazil is a less risky choice than Argentina, and hopes there will be no social demonstrations during the competition.
Politically, in Argentina the change of venue caused a lot of controversy, the former Argentinean president Mauricio Macri, who is the current president of the FIFA Foundation, mentioned that he thought it was inconsistent that Argentina was hosting the Copa America because of the pandemic situation, and CONMEBOL immediately branded the former president as "ignorant" and "malicious". On the other hand, the Kirchnerism sector was not in agreement with holding the Copa América either, as the government of the province of Buenos Aires declared itself against the celebration.
Latin America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra