Copa chaos

The 2021 edition of the Copa America, due to be co-hosted by Colombia and Argentina, has been plunged into chaos.

In the midst of civil unrest and protests against the government, Colombia requested a delay to the competition but, having already waited an extra year for the tournament because of the pandemic, CONMEBOL rejected the proposal and stripped them of their hosting rights.

A spike in COVID-19 cases and a nine-day lockdown then saw Argentina stripped of the tournament too. The possibility of moving games to the United States was briefly considered – in spite of the country hosting the CONCACAF Gold Cup later this summer – but CONMEBOL eventually decided to move the competition to Brazil, hosts of the last edition in 2019. The decision, labelled “insane” by many pundits, has been met with widespread criticism – Brazil has registered the second-highest coronavirus death toll in the world, and protests have been staged across the nation over president Jair Bolsonaro’s management of the COVID-19 crisis.