By David Gold
May 8 – Nicolás Leoz, the President of the Confederation of South American Football (CONMEBOL), has said that the 2015 Copa America represents “a great opportunity for Chile”.
Brazil was originally due to host the tournament, but due to the World Cup and Olympic and Paralympic Games taking place there in 2014 and 2016 respectively, they opted to relinquish staging the competition and hand it over to Chile.
Brazil will stage the 2019 event instead.
Meeting with Chilean Football Federation (FFCh) President Sergio Jadue (pictured above, left) in Santiago, Paraguayan Leoz (pictured above, right) said: “This is a great opportunity for Chile and its new President Sergio Jadue, and we know that with the cooperation of the Government, people and the press will be a total success.”
Chile is also hosting the under-17 World Cup in the same year, after the Copa America.
The 10 team Copa America invites two teams from outside the continent to participate in each event, and frequent guests Mexico were confirmed by Leoz as the 11th team, with speculation that the United States would be the other.
Jadue said: “The voice and posture of Nicolás [Leoz] was instrumental in making our proposal prevail over that of other countries.
“Since 1991 [Chile] has not organised a Copa America…it is a great challenge.
“We want to organise the best Copa America in history.
“More than 600 thousand tickets were sold at the last tournament in Argentina.
“We do everything first class and respond to the trust by CONMEBOL.”
Leoz’s visit to Chile also saw him visit the Bellavista SEK University to be honoured with their Institutional Centennial Medal, as well as taking in a league match between Copa Sudamericana champions Universidad de Chile and Colo-Colo.
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