We really should. The Centenario was well run, but this one was an utter embarrassment on all fronts. This is a shame because it featured arguably the worlds top two teams: Argentina and Colombia.
CONMEBOL indicates the security around stadia was in charge of local authorities, not the organization. The local authorities admit they were opening and closing the doors at intervals to try to get only those with valid tickets inside, but those who entered illegally used even the air vents. The video also says C-BOL explained what sort of security measures would be necessary but in the end the local authorities didn't follow their recommendations.
Well, that's damage control. CONMEBOL is in charge of everything, and they were the ones working with local authorities. "Match day ops, security, the physical running of the tournament is 100% CONMEBOL," per Concacaf. https://t.co/ItGHTNBp4x— Felipe Cárdenas (@FelipeCar) July 15, 2024
Not to mention … “The 71-year-old head of Colombia's soccer federation and his son were arrested in Miami, accused of fighting security guards after the Copa America final that saw chaotic scenes around the stadium, Miami-Dade police confirmed on Monday.”
People can throw blame back and forth all they want but in the end, there is plenty to go around. CONMEBOL should have insisted on appropriate security, but the stadium needs to do their own due diligence too. None of them are blameless.
You know who's most to blame? The dumbasses breaking into the stadium without tickets. But whatever..................... CONMEBOL ran the show. When SUM runs these events, they know what they're doing with local security, etc. in North America Were there any problems at the 2016 Copa America, run by SUM? Jay Berhalter was the CEO of that event. Were there near riots at the Argentina versus Chile final? Did Colombia not play in that event? I mean, what are we talking about here? CONMEBOL is in charge of gameday logistics and security. If they didn't have the right security, that's on them. We can blame the unprepared rent-a-cops they hired, but that's missing the forest for the trees. SUM made a boatload of money in 2016. CONMEBOL wanted that for themselves and chose not to use SUM. They didn't have the boots on the ground who knew what they hell they were doing. Its like if CONCACAF decided to hold a tournament in Africa. You'd be like...................well, you better partner with somebody there who knows what the hell is going on.
What really pisses me off about this is media I’ve seen keep framing this as a US problem. As in “Is the US prepared to host the 2026 World Cup after this fiasco?” This is not a US problem, as seen by the well run Copa Centario, but dumb ass media (especially foreign ones) can’t wait to dump on the US rather than report the real story about who was in charge.
Yes, but we're talking about Jay Berhalter, the Keyser Soze of American soccer. Folks knew better than to try anything while he was running things.
Jay Berhalter is only Keyser Soze in the sense that he doesn’t exist. Jay Berhalter is just Gregg Berhalter’s cover identity. And, of course, Gregg Berhalter is just a skin suit that the SUM lizard people wear as part of their plan to conquer Earth by making America mid at men’s international soccer.
English version of the communiqué is out, here: As is known, during the final in Miami, fans without tickets went to the vicinity of the stadium, which delayed normal access for people who did have them, which slowed down entry and led to the closure of the doors. Given this situation, CONMEBOL was subject to the decisions made by the authorities of Hard Rock Stadium, in accordance with the contractual responsibilities established for the security operation. In addition to the provisions set out in said contract, CONMEBOL recommended to said authorities the procedures tested in events of this magnitude, which were NOT taken into account. Translated full text here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/1e46msn/conmebol_statement_on_copa_america_final/ Hard Rock Stadium officials reply: https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-stadium-copa-america-final-fans/74416939007/ “As we've previously said, Hard Rock Stadium worked collaboratively with CONMEBOL, CONCACAF and local law enforcement agencies on security both leading up to and during the Copa America tournament. The agencies met regularly, including daily security briefings throughout the month-long tournament. Hard Rock Stadium implemented, and in many cases exceeded, CONMEBOL's security recommendations throughout the tournament and the Final." ---- "It's not me, señor! It's you!" "No, es usted, mister!" That's why events like this should not be organized by several different entities, they will blame each other once the thing inevitably goes hoofs up. The end result? The world sees a soccer mess in the USA and wonders if the WC26 will be safe. Many around the world have qualms visiting, the news abroad paint an image of the USA as if it were in a slow-fire civil war already. Heck, here in Canada all they put on TV is the mass shootings, the giant corruption cases, the assassination attempts, the mob robberies, and the infrastructure falling to pieces. If I didn't know better, I'd be wary of visiting too.
Injury Update x @BaptistHealthSF An update on Lionel Messi’s injury: https://t.co/0nEgXctKJp pic.twitter.com/YdaIN2L7dR— Inter Miami CF (@InterMiamiCF) July 16, 2024 Messi appeared to have suffered a ligament injury to his ankle.
And now everything went hoofs up, for real: https://us.yahoo.com/sports/french-...ers-following-copa-america-win-220415472.html French federation condemns 'racist and discriminatory remarks' by Argentina players following Copa América win After the win, Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez posted video from the team bus of players reciting a derogatory chant about the French national team that included a transphobic remark and references to players' African heritage. French player Wesley Fofana posted video of the incident on social media Tuesday alongside the caption: "Football in 2024: uninhibited racism." Fofana is Fernandez's Chelsea teammate. --- Those idiots were live-streaming their celebration on Insta. You can hear one of the guys noticing Enzo is streaming and goes "corta el live! corta el live!" (stop streaming!). What a bunch of tarados. Even Messi was singing. The song itself is bad, very very bad. They're all going to be punished, you can bet. And the situation with their black and gay teammates is going to be bad. Very, very bad. https://elpopular.pe/deportes/2024/...ssi-y-la-seleccion-argentina-a-francia-240736 Someone needs to tell South America is 2024, not 1954.
This seems official GRACIAS MÉXICO 🇲🇽 pic.twitter.com/mMvKu5l7mi— Jaime Lozano (@jaime_lozano_) July 17, 2024
There's something poignantly extra stupid to them pulling out a deep cut about France. Not that night's opponent, Colombia. Not their eternal rival Brazil - - just imagine the things they must say about the Seleção's demographics. Not a rival from CONMEBOL or anyone else in the tournament they just won. I know the distinction doesn't matter; it's just so weird to direct this bigotry at France. Heaven knows we Americans can't throw stones about historical racism, but there's a particularly eugenic motif to 19th and 20th century Argentine history. Immigration was widely popular among intellectuals of the day, because Argentina was booming economically (until early 20th c) and needed more people. But it was important to attract the "right kind" of immigrants... and if you can't attract your first choice, then settle for Italians, because at least poor Mediterranean Europeans are European, technically speaking.
Yeah, people in glass houses can't throw stones (1882 Chinese Exclusion Act of US) but as I understand it, Argentina specifically sought out immigrants exclusively from (southern) Europe to populate the country - no one else need apply.
It's really stupid but only thing I can think of is Mbappe's comments about the Euro being harder to win than the World Cup, which could be taken as a ploy to downplay Argentina's achievement, and assuming France won this year, burnish his own. Certainly fits the pattern of his previous comments about South American football. Doesn't justify it at all, but that's the only connection I can draw. But Argentinians hold onto all sorts of grudges stupidly long.
Dolphins assessing ‘significant damage’ to Hard Rock Stadium after Copa America final security breach (yahoo.com) and the hits just keep coming. Now Dolphin owner likely has an avenue to get money for damages too. this is gonna be big.
I don't have any intention of wading into Argentina NT: News, Players, etc. because, even with Brazil as my second favorite NT, I don't want to troll Argentines or get into stupid arguments. The discussion there is mostly about how poor Argentina is being persecuted for saying the things everyone else thinks about France, examples of French expats doing bad things in Argentina, etc. No discussion to be had with someone who thinks this is NBD. I don't mind discussing it with Argentines, of course, as long as we can start from a consensus that this behavior is morally wrong and embarrassing. Anyway it's fascinating that the ARG right-wing government has gotten involved, on the side you'd expect. Milei fired the undersecretary for sport for calling for Messi to apologize, an apology from the national captain that in most places would be considered an entry-level step toward healing and damage control. So there's a very real chance that the Milei government could make it harder for Argentines to play in top leagues. Fernández has already apologized, of course, but it seems like the apologies will be easier to ignore if the ARG govt is whining about how their players are mistreated. I'll be watching this story.
I googled but couldn't find a clip to insert here, but on today's Morning Footy, [paraphrasing] Nico Cantor said that racist/inflammatory remarks start from the very top in Argentina. I think he said that the Vice President has publicly made quite racist comments and it's not seen as controversial/shocking in Argentina. That said, Nico condemned the attitude in Argentina that saying such things is viewed as normal there. Nigel Reo-Coker chimed in that in today's media age, no one can claim that any racist comments they make is due to "ignorance". Susanna chimed in that with the George Floyd worldwide protests nobody can claim ignorance when it comes to racial matters.
France and USA are the only two countries in the world to discuss racism openly. The result is that other countries point at them, and say: "see, they have racism issues, we don't, we don't have any racism here." When in fact it's everywhere, just kept completely in the dark. However, I notice a sort of opposite-trend between Hispanic culture (including Spain) and Anglo culture: in the former, people are more outwardly racist and there's still a fight going on to moderate racist jokes, racism in TV shows, and authority figures saying cringe racist crap, while at the same time discrimination is not as bad, with unemployment rates and representation rates of minorities in culture actually being better than in the Anglo world; on the other hand, in the English-speaking side of things, much progress has been made to stop using inflammatory racist language, and to completely remove anything racist from media, but there are still issues with representation (a black elf can cause a sh-tstorm of people whining that Tolkien was betrayed, for example, while in LatAm a black actor playing Simon Bolivar is no big deal) and unemployment, underemployment, and lack of promotions remains an issue. Same with other things like women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights. People still make awful sexist and homophobic jokes, but you find more women in top positions in government (including head of state), more LGBTQ+ people openly in media and corporate managerial positions (specially transfolks, it's been a long time that having a trans actor in a movie or series stopped being a big deal in the Hispanic world). It's almost like one culture emphasizes the être while the other puts more emphasis on the paraître, as the French would say (also, in Hispanic cultures, "race-mixing" was much more extensive, while in the English world "miscegenation" was illegal or at the very least widely condemned, so maybe that's part of it).
The ignorance defense is stupid anyway, you can hear someone tell him to shut off the live stream the moment they start singing the song. So they know what they are singing is bad.