RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (EFE) Sponsor flight, judicial mess, players’ criticism, and 1,800 deaths per day due to Covid-19. Against this backdrop, Copa America will kick off on Sunday in Brazil, a country badly hit by the pandemic that decided to organize at the last minute the most controversial edition in the recent history of the century-old soccer tournament.
The “show” will start at the Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasilia with the match between Brazil and Venezuela, after two convulsive weeks that put the celebration of the event at risk.
Nearly two-thirds of Brazilians oppose the country hosting the soccer tournament, a poll showed on Friday, amid concerns over the country’s dire Covid-19 outbreak.
The Brazilian Supreme Court cleared doubts at the judicial level by rejecting on Thursday three appeals requesting the suspension of the tournament due to the very high incidence of the coronavirus in the country, which has accumulated nearly 500,000 deaths in less than a year and a half.
A few days earlier, on Tuesday, the players of the Brazilian national team chased away the specter of a boycott, although with harsh criticism of CONMEBOL, the South American Soccer Confederation, organizer of the tournament.
The highest authority of South American soccer is determined to carry out this Copa America, which was already postponed in 2020 because of the pandemic, despite the refusal of the two initially plannedvenues, Colombia and Argentina.
The former, facing a wave of social protests, asked to postpone it, but CONMEBOL was inflexible. The latter demurred due to the critical situation of its hospitals, similar to that of Brazil.
In this impasse, the option came up of Brazil – the Latin American country most affected by SARS-CoV-2 – hosting the tournament. CONMEBOL contacted the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), which asked the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The president gave his approval, and on May 31, Brazil was announced as the host country for the Copa America 2021.
The move, made in haste and less than two weeks before the kickoff, generated enormous indignation among diverse political sectors, from the left to the moderate right, health and sports.
For his part, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, stressed that the tournament does not represent an “additional” risk and recalled that other international competitions are already being played in Brazil, such as the Libertadores and South American Cups or the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In the Brazilian national team’s locker room, a debate about whether to play or not was installed.
Rumors also surfaced about a possible dismissal of coach Tite, in the midst of an internal crisis with the CBF that culminated in the suspension of its president, Rogerio Caboclo, one of the godfathers of bringing the tournament to Brazil, who was recently accused by a female employee of moral and sexual harassment.
At the same time, two leftist parties and a trade union organization appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the tournament, while the government was fine-tuning the details and defining four cities as venues: Cuiabá, Goiania, Brasília, and Rio de Janeiro.
In these four cities, the public health system is still under heavy pressure from the coronavirus. For example, in Rio de Janeiro, where eight matches will be played, including the final, almost 90% of the intensive care beds are occupied.
There were contacts between the teams’ captains, but finally, the players from the host nation released a manifesto in which they ratified their presence from a critical position. “We are against the organization of the Copa America, but we will never say no to the Brazilian team,” they said.
After so much noise, on a positive note, the “Canarinha” team will field all its stars: Neymar, Casemiro, Marquinhos, Thiago Sliva, Firmino, Gabriel Jesus and company.
On the other hand, between Wednesday and Thursday, Copa America in Brazil lost three important sponsors – Mastercard, Ambev, and Diageo – who all decided to refrain from exhibiting their brands in this year’s edition. None of the three companies wanted to have their image associated with the already nicknamed “Covid America”.
While these three multinationals announced that they will not promote their brands during the matches as official sponsors of the event, the Brazilian department store chain Havan decided to sponsor SBT’s television broadcast of the event.
And as in every Brazilian political-judicial novel, the Supreme Court gave the last word and opted to release the tournament, the only condition being that a security protocol be presented; this has already been done published by CONMEBOL.
However, the high court issued a warning, recalling that the local authorities may answer in court if it is proven that the tournament in any way aggravated the country’s health crisis.
The Copa America will kick off on Sunday, with the ten South American teams divided into two groups of five. Group A will consist of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay; Group B will feature Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador Peru, and Venezuela.
If the same pandemic trend continues, the country will surpass the tragic mark of 500,000 deaths due to Covid-19 during the celebration of this controversial Copa America, which will end on July 10 at the iconic Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro.