Brazil to host 2021 Copa America – CONMEBOL confirm

Neymar-Brazil 1

Brazil will host the 2021 Copa America after scheduling chaos saw Colombia and later Argentina could not host the tournament under different circumstances.

The decision to award Brazil the privilege to host the tournament had to be made quickly by the CONMEBOL—South America’s football governing body—with the tournament starting in the second week of June through July.

Colombia and Argentina were originally scheduled to jointly host the tournament, which was moved from 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But due to ongoing political tensions in Colombia, CONMEBOL granted Argentina the sole right to host the tournament. However, rising cases of COVID-19 in Argentina meant that the footballing body had to quickly look for a new host as the competition was looking increasingly unlikely to hold.

Following the development, CONMEBOL took to Twitter to make the announcement.

“The CONMEBOL Copa America 2021 will be played in Brazil! Tournament start and end dates are confirmed” they said.

“The venues and the fixture list will be informed by CONMEBOL in the next few hours.

“The oldest national team tournament in the world will thrill the entire continent!”

Brazil, who also hosted the last edition of the tournament in 2019, is now set to host the 47th edition of the tournament. This will be the fifth time Brazil is hosting the event and will make it their 21st appearance in the tournament.

Former hosts Argentina and Colombia, as well as Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay and Uruguay, joins them in this year’s edition.

Brazil will host the CONMEBOL Copa América. The decision was adopted this Monday, after the approval of the Brazilian government to the request made by the Brazilian Football Confederation.

The president of CONMEBOL, Alejandro Domínguez, contacted the president of the Brazilian Soccer Confederation, Rogério Caboclo, to evaluate the possibility of Brazil hosting all of the CONMEBOL Copa América 2021 matches.

President Caboclo spoke with the President of the Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who supported the initiative immediately, with the endorsement of the Ministries of the Civil House, Health, Foreign Relations and the National Secretariat of Sports.

Brazil has extensive experience in organizing top-level sporting events, with the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the 2019 FIFA U-17 World Cup and the CONMEBOL Copa América 2019, among others.

“The Brazilian government demonstrated agility and decision-making capacity at a fundamental moment for South American football,” said CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez, who added that “Brazil is experiencing a moment of stability, it has proven infrastructure and accumulated experience and recently to organize a competition of this magnitude “

The host cities of the event will be defined and disclosed as soon as possible.

CONMEBOL Media Release