Fair? LOL The only reason this cockamamie idea came about is to satisfy "the need" of mexican, central american, and south american ex-pats living in the U.S. to see " their" national teams in person playing in a world class tournament, and to profit from it. Now they want to steal, yes steal, the Copa America from their rightful owners. And you want to talk about something not being fair? Dont make me laugh... And btw I live in the US.
To have Concacaf and African players playing in Europe depart to play for their NT's whenever they want it, almost doesn't affect their clubs, as most of those players are only reserve and substitute players, which can perfectly be replaced by local players, and almost no one back there will even notice their absence. Now, it is very diferent regarding Conmebol players, as many of these, are usually starters in their teams, being some of them the top stars of their clubs, which are among the players that really make the top leagues round the world "spin" and are the reason why their leagues are highly atractive to viewers. Some of the most powerful teams in the world, without them would be at most, average among the other clubs in their leagues (in some cases, even less than average), and of course besides not filling their stadiums, will also mean for them a substantial decrease on network demand, which of course also means lots of less money for them, as well.
When Africa has their Cups it actually does affect teams and it is played during the season which is a worse conflict. This would be in the Summer. I think there is a way to work things out. I will admit that getting FIFA approval and Club approval will not be easy though but it is not out of the realm of possibility either.
Nope. What Conmebol did, was create this CAC, in order to give some Concacaf teams some involvement into something they wanted and have asked before for themselves, where Conmebol has never given them any credit in decissions that rule it since the begining, which is the Copa America. More so, from the moment of the creation of this tournament it was said that it would be a "special edition" not to be linked directly to the original competition, an issue where Concacaf teams have tried to dismiss all the time, believing it was the same thing, when it never has.
What I am saying is the truth. The CONMEBOL wanted to have this special Cup in the USA. IT was not the CONCACAF who came to the CONMEBOL and said let's make this happen. And I believe they are having talks to have more special 16 team Cups in the future. We shall see what happens.
I would like it with 16 tema but not CONCACAF. We need better teams in order to improve CONMEBOL's level.
Conmebol, when accepted the feasability to do this tournament, studied the diferent alternatives, where Mexico was among those whom most wanted to host it, but despite what they wanted, Conmebol officials decided to do it in the USA instead, given the numerous south american expats that already were living in the USA. Besides, for Conmebol officials having it in the USA, would sure make them lots richer than whatever Mexico could give them, and that was basicly why it went to the USA at the end. Little they knew, that actually having it in the USA is probably what triggered the involvement by the US Justice dept and the FBI, into a deep investigation into corruption, which as inmediate cosequences had most Conmebol officials of the time, indicted by them, and of course none of the expected money in their pockets. If they would have had it in South America or maybe in Mexico, many of them would probably still be at office nowdays and spending part of the money they "won" as bribes, although it would have been lots less of it. But that is another story, we don't need to debate over, here, as there are lots of other threads which talk about it. The only ones really having those "talks" you mention, are mostly voices that come from Concacaf, whom want to repeat the experience. As for many people in Conmebol, are now convinced that having this tournament in the USA, was really a very bad idea, as at the end, the money received from the tournament was lots less than the amount of money expected to be received, and what is worse is that for many Federations of Conmebol (specially those whom had to travel longer distances) it finally meant more losses than gains from it (not only in terms of money, but also on terms of respect). The only ones who really won big money with the tournament, were mainly for the USA (all ticket money was for them) and secondary to Concacaf. About possibilities to have 16 teams in future Copa's America, that depends on what future hosts decide to do when their time to host comes. As having so many intrascendent teams, mostly coming from Concacaf, really doesn't add that much to the tournament. So if the 16 team fixture is repeated again, maybe we at Conmebol decide to invite teams from other Confeds as well, and not give those invitations only to Concacrap teams.
The ones who reported the leak are South Americans who live here in the USA. You may want to call them voices of the CONCACAF but they are not. They follow the CONMEBOL closely and know officials who often go to Miami. Now, I am not saying ESPN Deportes is always credible in all of their reports or assessments when it comes to speculation about events and other tournaments but I think where there is smoke there is usually fire in these instances. Discussions are probably taking place on how they could do something like this again.
Many of the indicted Conmebol officials are currently living there, btw But that doesn't make them leading forces of anything. You watch too much TV....
No one said anything about indicted officials when pertaining to another competition. And yes I watch way too much TV. Good observation.
Besides the World Cup and Confederations cup, of course.. I'm talking about a competition that's strictly Conmebol vs UEFA.. I forgot to mention this, that's why I quoted my own post.. but the problem is.. UEFA has too many teams.. so I guess Conmebol teams would automatically qualify, since it's only ten teams.. while UEFA teams have to go through Qualifying Matches. What do you guys think about this?
Regardless of who approach whom, what we do know is the tournament was a massive success in generating revenue and coverage plus the average standard of play was high. The biggest issues are first where to slot it in, although I feel my suggestion is still the best: same summers as the Euro, all ten Conmebol teams plus six highest ranked Concacaf sides. That way the Copa America and Gold Cup can be played the summer after the World Cup and the summer before the next World Cup is for the Confederations Cup. The other pending issue is a more equitable distribution of the profits, as some have pointed out the federations that support their clubs should get a bigger piece of the pie. Also, if this combined tournament continues, the regular Copa America should go back to only the ten Conmebol sides in two groups of five with top two from each advancing to semifinals. WC-3: Copa America, Gold Cup WC-2: "Panamerican Cup" WC-1: Confederations Cup World Cup Year ...
Basically the perfect setup, but pending a complaint post about players being over-fatigued by playing another summer tourney in 3...2...1...
If all the European leagues would have 18 teams instead of 20, that alone makes up for any 4-week summer tournament.
Yeh now that I think about it, there wouldn't be enough time for Conmebol vs UEFA to happen.. teams already have to deal with other stuff, this new tournament wouldn't fit in the schedule
I hate this argument... CONMEBOL teams do not play qualifiers for the Copa America, nor do they have a lengthy WC qualifying campaign (18 games). Whereas a European or Asian team has to qualify for not only the World Cup, but also their confederation tournaments (though Asia is changing this, I believe). The number of games is not that big of an issue. In fact, as I may have said before in this thread, the scheduling would more greatly affect the U.S., as our domestic league actually plays during this time period. I think the tournament could be a rousing success.
10 team tournaments are quite normal for Conmebol examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_South_American_Youth_Football_Championship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_South_American_Under-17_Football_Championship
The American mainstream media coverage was minimal, according to what I read. I mean, when we have a Copa América in South America, the host country stops thinking about the economy, politics and crime for a month.
This shows me the potential of how the game can grow though. MEaning, with minimal main stream coverage matches got record television rating numbers and record attendance. Could you imagine if a tournament like this became a 4 year staple with effort being put into promotion, organization and logistics? The sky is the limit.
I feel the main Hispanic channels Univision and Telemundo have the ratings to qualify as "American mainstream" and they covered it extensively, as did Fox since they had the English language rights to it. There were also enough highlights in ESPN SportsCenter to register interest. Also you must remember that it was hastily put together and there was not enough time for marketing (something that America invented and loves) for an even bigger audience.