Copa América USA

After the first few games, this sad announcement: “United States May Become Permanent Host of Copa América.” The idea is to merge the Copa América and the Gold Cup, following the blueprint of the latter. (I’ve also seen this news in the Ecuadorian press.)

So much for the CONMEBOL’s policy of giving each country its turn to host the tournament.

So much for the poor citizen of Ecuador or Bolivia or Brazil who’d never travel to the United States – who would attend the tourney in his homeland, or who’d at least partake in the festivities in his homeland. “Hosting doesn’t make you rich,” say the authors of the book Soccernomics, “but it does make you happier.” When the games are at home, what the people gain is “a sense of belonging” – and sometimes, literally, “a lifesaver” (the local suicide rate goes down; so does depression).

I remember the 1993 Copa América in Ecuador. We weren’t very good at soccer, but the country rallied together and the players gave decent performances and improved their self-belief. This was crucial for our team’s development.

But because the CONCACAF’s Gold Cup is always held in the United States, there’s no prospect of such a boost for nations like El Salvador or Haiti. The Gold Cup is a charade, not a bona fide contest. The Copa América and the Euros and the Africa Cup of Nations may’ve had their injustices; but, to their credit, they’ve been staged in such humble locations as Paraguay (1997) and Poland (2012), Angola (2010) and Burkina Faso (1998), Gabon (2012) and tiny Equatorial Guinea (2012, 2015).

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What should the gringos expect to gain from becoming the perpetual gatekeepers? Only money.

For gringos, soccer doesn’t matter to national identity. They have nothing like the wholehearted consensus about this sport that exists in other countries. The gringos would never put aside their domestic differences for soccer’s sake.

Nor have they shown that they wish to commune with other nations over soccer. They’ve been invited to the Copa América every time since 1993, but they haven’t participated in it since 1995. [Correction, from Stephen: they participated in 2007.]

Nor are the gringos very concerned with being hospitable. Never mind that they might make Donald Trump their president: they don’t care enough to use the correct spelling of “Colombia.”

They don’t care enough to play the other countries’ anthems properly. So far, in this tourney, they’ve played Chile’s anthem instead of Uruguay’s, and they’ve cut off Chile’s anthem prematurely. They’ve shown disrespect for the national identities that make these games so meaningful for South Americans.

In Ecuador, Independiente del Valle, a modest club, is donating its ticket proceeds to Ecuadorians who were stricken by the recent earthquake.

In the United States, the rich have no qualms about scheming to take away a comforting tradition from the people who live in South America.

There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.

The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:

But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. …