courtesy marca.com
Copa America 2021 which was supposed to be hosted jointly by Argentina and Colombia has now been shifted to Brazil as said by CONMEBOL on Monday.
Colombia was the first country that was removed as a host from this competition keeping in mind the intensive protests that are going on in the country against the government authority that ranges from removing police brutality to unemployment among youth. There were also many instances of fire outside football stadiums and keeping this threat in mind, CONMEBOL removed Colombia from hosting the competition. Argentina was also removed as the host due to a sudden surge in coronavirus cases that has affected around 3.8 million people there and claimed 77,000 lives. CONMEBOL took the decision to remove them on Sunday, just 13 days before the tournament was scheduled to kickoff.
Brazil will now be hosting the event from June 13 to July 10. The tournament was originally scheduled for 2020 but was postponed by 1 year due to the ongoing pandemic. Brazil also hosted the last Copa America in 2019 and this would have been the first time in history that 2 countries would host the tournament but this couldn’t happen due to these unforeseen situations. CONMEBOL will be announcing the new venues and date of matches in the upcoming hours.