October 5 – The Brazilian top flight will be interrupted during next year’s Copa America, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) revealed in announcing the calendar for the 2019 season.
Brazil has a calendar that is out of sync with much of world football and principally Europe to accommodate the country’s somewhat outdated state championships, a procession of mismatches between Brazil’s biggest clubs and provincial teams at the start of the year. The new calendar has no major reshuffles as the CBF seeks to maintain its power base around the 27 states, who benefit from the state championships.
In 2019 the state championships will end in April when the national championship will kick off. The Serie A will however be interrupted for the Copa America, South America’s continental championship which Brazil will stage between June 14 and July 7. Two days before the Copa America’s kick-off the topflight and other competitions will halt in Brazil. The Copa America will have Japan and Qatar as invitees.
Official FIFA dates will remain a problem for domestic clubs. The local league will on multiple occasions run simultaneously with FIFA dates, when clubs are obliged to release their players for national team duties. In 2019, seven match days in the Brazilian topflight will coincide with the international calendar (match day 8,9,18, 24,25,26,33).
Rogerio Caboclo, the CBF president in waiting, has indicated that the CBF will seek to improve its calendar for the 2020 season. He left the existence of the state championships untouched and didn’t address the issue of concurring and conflicting match days. “One of the biggest challenges of the CBF is to improve the calendar, to better spread the competitions during the year and give fans better days and kick-off times,” said Caboclo. “We made a move in this direction and we will move forward more in 2020.”
Contact the writer of this story Samindra Kunti at moc.l1731637632labto1731637632ofdlr1731637632owedi1731637632sni@o1731637632fni1731637632