Euro 2021 will end on Sunday July 11 in London, with the final at Wembley Stadium. The month of football which has just passed will have witnessed a return to normal, or almost. With high stakes and sometimes play, suspense from the phase of knockout matches. And the public. A little, a lot, and passionately in the 11 cities where UEFA has staged its ordeal. European football has enjoyed becoming the center of the football world.
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In the southern hemisphere, in Rio de Janeiro, on July 10, at the Maracana stadium, another legendary arena, the Copa America presents the final of a competition played in Brazil despite the health crisis and in deserted stadiums. Started on June 13, the South American Nations Tournament is coming to an end. When, in Europe, 24 countries out of the 55 members of UEFA were invited to the finals, the 10 nations that make up the Conmebol (1) were all involved in the competition. Officially scheduled for 2021, it has lived in the media vis-à-vis the Euro, delayed by a year by the health crisis. The Copa America knows this duplication with the European meeting for the third time in its history only. In 2014 and 2016, this had already been the case.
“The same track record”
The competition between the two biggest continental competitions on the planet football says everything about this sport today. Sportingly, the Euro, and its two dozen nations in the final phase, displays its superiority which makes the event a mini-World Cup. The Copa America, invented in 1916, nearly half a century before the Euro, turns in circles with its quartet of key selections – Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay. And yet, reading the workforce sums up another distribution of forces.
The South American talents, exiled in European clubs to make a fortune, are almost as numerous in the selections seen at the Copa America as their teammates in those of the Euro. To be convinced, you have to read the numbers of the four European clubs semi-finalists of the last Champions League (Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris SG). Twenty-five pros of this last four played the Euro, sixteen took part in the Copa America.
Although ravaged by the Covid, Brazil hosts the Copa America. Within its temple of football, the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro and its nearly 79,000 seats! © Buda Mendes / Getty Images / AFP
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“We always find the same nations on the Copa list,” said Omar da Fonseca, former Argentinian player and star consultant for beIn Sports. “But even though there is less competition, this cut is driven by more passion. Football is a religion, a passion in “AmSud”. There are real rivalries. But by expanding the number of participating countries for reasons that are not always sporting, another scenario emerges. The first round phase was sometimes boring in terms of play during Euro 2020 and the Copa America. We had to wait for the knockout matches to guess the entry. Why ?
Race for profitability
The two tournaments are always looking bigger. More teams, more matches… and more profits. We would come close to overdose. UEFA and Conmebol share the same temptation to change their model. The Euro has risked a competition “exploded” whose formula will not be renewed. She summoned both the desire to spread the party everywhere and to broaden its audience by involving more countries, therefore TV rights. An opportunity to satisfy in particular the sponsors and Eastern European States very invested in the sports economy.
The Copa America has taken the lead in imagining its media and economic future. A way to escape its narrow frame. From 1993, the event opened to selections from Central and North America (Mexico, United States, Honduras, Jamaica, etc.). It also hosted Qatar and Japan (in 2019). Australia, invited in 2021, withdrew. The final phase of the Copa, already organized in Mexico and the United States, says this race for profitability.
“Big interests at stake”
“It weakens the level and the interest, these are populist arguments, insists the Argentine consultant. In football and sport, it is the “expectation” that creates desire, passion and popularity. Today, we have reversed everything, we start with the TV rights and the extended exposure of the big sponsors, and we trivialize the event with as many matches, in Europe or in AmSud. On both sides, there are very big interests at stake. A few days before the start of the Copa America, the same teams have already faced each other for the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup. “
And less and less time to recover, the European championships restarting in a month. We then remember the astonishing proposal of Arsène Wenger, who became special advisor to Fifa, to organize the World Cup and the Euro every two years, or the presence of 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup, organized in the United States. , Mexico and Canada. Always more. Until exhaustion …
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