Corinthians pull out of Copa America 2019 hosting duty

August 24 – The Arena Corinthians, Sao Paulo’s main football stadium and venue for the opening of the 2014 World Cup, will not play host to Copa America matches in 2019. CONMEBOL, South America’s governing body, had envisaged the stadium as a host venue, but influential Corinthians president Andres Sanchez opposed the idea and got his way.

Next year, the Copa America returns to Brazil. The hosts of the 2014 World Cup were supposed to stage the continental tournament in 2015, but pulled out at the time. In 2019, the tournament will be organised in five cities: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Salvador.

Sanchez pushed through Corinthians’ pull out at a meeting with CONMEBOL officials as they discussed this season’s Copa Libertadores. With the Arena Corinthians off the cards, Allianz Parque, Palmeiras’ stadium is now the favourite to host Copa America matches. Sao Paulo also boasts two other big, but antiquated, stadiums, namely the Morumbi and the Paecambu.

In 2014, the Arena Corinthians, which suffered from an extravagant price tag and has been a burden ever since on the finances of Corinthians, hosted seven World Cup matches, including the curtain raiser between hosts Brazil and Croatia, and the semi-final between Argentina and the Netherlands.

Twelve countries will compete for the 46th edition of the Copa America, with invitees Japan and Qatar completing the line-up alongside the ten South American countries. It is the first time that Qatar have been invited to the South American championship.

The 2019 Copa America will be the last Copa America to be stage in impair years. As of 2020, with a new tournament in the United States that year, the Copa America will be organised in even years, like the European Championship.

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