The relocation of the South American soccer championship is part of an agreement that also includes expanded events for clubs and women in the Americas.
The Copa América, South America’s biggest soccer championship, will return to the United States in 2024 as part of a broad collaboration agreement between soccer officials in the Americas that also includes at least one new tournament as well as expanded intercontinental competitions for clubs and women’s national teams.
Concacaf, the confederation that governs the sport in North and Central America and the Caribbean, and Conmebol, which rules the game in South America, announced their agreement on Friday.
Among its obvious soccer and financial benefits — a previous Copa América in the United States was the largest and richest edition in the competition’s history — the agreement signaled a significant restoration of trust between officials from North and South America.
Many soccer relationships in the region were seriously damaged in the years after 2015, when a corruption investigation led by the United States Department of Justice led to the arrests and convictions of dozens of soccer and marketing officials throughout the Americas. Television rights to the Copa América, the century-old South American championship, were central to some of those cases, and two former television executives charged with other crimes are currently on trial in New York.
Despite all that, South American soccer nations have long looked to the United States, with its vast pool of expatriates but also its vast pool of capital, as a market they wanted to tap. But they wanted to do it on their terms.
Now, South America will get access to both, while the United States, Mexico and Canada — the three co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup — will have the opportunity to play in a meaningful and competitive tournament two years before that global event. The success of the 2024 Copa América will go a long way toward determining if a longer term collaboration will become a fixture for soccer in the region.
The Copa América was played in the United States in 2016, the only other time it was held outside South America and also the only time it included as many as 16 teams. Chile beat Lionel Messi and Argentina in the final, denying Messi a coveted trophy he has since claimed. (Messi also led Argentina to the World Cup title last year, but it is unclear if he will still be playing internationally in 2024.)
In 2024, the 10 South American nations that would normally contest the Copa América will be joined by six teams from the Concacaf region.
It is not uncommon for the Copa América to include “guest teams” from other regions. But for 2024, the teams from Concacaf will qualify through the 2023-24 Concacaf Nations League, rather than by invitation. A guest team has never won the Copa América, although Mexico made the final in 1993 and 2001. The United States has appeared in the tournament four times, making two semifinal appearances.
The federations said the expanded Copa América would serve, in part, as a vital window of top-level preparation in the Western Hemisphere ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which is to be co-hosted in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
The tournament will be held from mid-June to mid-July 2024, putting it in scheduling conflict with that summer’s European Championship, a tent-pole event on the soccer calendar that is held every four years, but keeping both tournaments well clear of the Paris Olympics that open in late July 2024.
Argentina won the most recent Copa América in 2021, a career highlight for Lionel Messi, and his first major national team title. He and Argentina followed that with a World Cup win in 2022. In all, Argentina and Uruguay have won 15 Copa Américas each and Brazil nine.
The federations also announced that the 2024 women’s Concacaf Gold Cup will include the top four South American teams alongside eight teams from Concacaf, a rare (and welcome) bit of heightened tournament competition for the region’s best teams outside the Women’s World Cup or the Olympics.
A new men’s club competition for the region is also planned, to include two club teams from each confederation. The federations said they hoped to launch that tournament in 2024 as well. The tournament comes as the Club World Cup, for club teams around the world, is in flux, with FIFA planning to expand it but hold it less frequently.
The club tournament is another sign of the deepening relationship between the regional bodies and the willingness of Conmebol to seek new territories for its teams. It already has a relationship with UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, that has seen the revival of an intercontinental championship matching the winner of the Copa América against the European champion. Argentina beat Italy, 3-0, in the game last year, the first time it had been held since 1993.
The new four-team club tournament is likely to feature the finalists from the Concacaf Champions League and the finalists from the Copa Libertadores, the South American club championship, or the winner of that event and the champion of South America’s second-tier competition, the Copa Sudamericana.
The new ventures come against the background of intense negotiations ahead of FIFA finalizing the global calendar for the next decade, a keenly anticipated plan that will shape the future of soccer across the world.
Source: Soccer - nytimes.com
