DALLAS — A bloodied, battered, unorganized mess.
From start to finish, the 2024 rendition of CONMEBOL’s prestigious Copa America – the oldest international soccer tournament in the world, having initially been held in 1916 – brought nothing but unbridled chaos these last few weeks, and with that unfair criticism of U.S. venues’ ability to host the World Cup in 2026.
Make no mistake: All the blame here falls on CONMEBOL, otherwise known as the South American Football Confederation, and the governing body of football in South America and its 10 member nations.
And, yes, there is plenty of blame to be had.
Scenes from even before the Copa America final kicked off – showing people getting trampled over as thousands of non-ticketed fans stormed the gates of Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium – will be this tournament’s lasting image.
In the days following the final, each side – CONMEBOL and Hard Rock Stadium – has blamed the other for the problems endured.
"CONMEBOL was subject to the decisions made by the Hard Rock Stadium authorities, in accordance with the contractual responsibilities established for security operations," CONMEBOL said in part in a statement issued Monday. "In addition to the provisions determined in this contract, CONMEBOL recommended to these authorities the procedures proven in events of this magnitude, which were NOT taken into account. We regret that the acts of violence caused by ill-intentioned individuals have marred a final that was ready to be a great celebration of the sport."
On Tuesday, Hard Rock Stadium hit CONMEBOL back with a statement of its own.
"Hard Rock Stadium has safely hosted hundreds of world-class events in its 37-year history, including Super Bowls, major international soccer matches, Formula 1, NFL and college football, headline concert tours and other global events," the statement read in part. "In each of those, security was a joint effort amongst the organizer, local law enforcement agencies and the venue. 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 worth noting that the final was by no means the sole situation throughout Copa America 2024 in which safety was a concern. Only days earlier, Uruguayan players had a “Malice At The Palace” moment at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte when they entered the stands and fought Colombian fans.
In the wake of each of these instances, scrutiny at both venues were highly criticized and questioned on social media – by players, patrons and pundits alike.
But, again, the venues were not the problem.
"Match day ops, security, the physical running of the tournament is 100% CONMEBOL," officials with Concacaf – or the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, which through a strategic partnership allows the South American federation to play its games in North America for this year’s tournament – told The Athletic's Felipe Cárdenas of Copa America’s operations.
The narrative that American venues were somehow incapable of hosting an event on Copa America’s scale is, frankly, absurd.
Hard Rock Stadium alone has hosted three Super Bowls since 2007, the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship, one of two 2022 College Football Playoff semifinal games, WrestleMania XXVIII (2012), plus concerts for Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Beyonce, Lady Gaga. And here in North Texas, the City of Arlington – another Copa America host site this year – once hosted sold-out crowds at a Bad Bunny Concert, a Texas Rangers game and a highly anticipated Texas high school football game, in three separate stadiums, each mere blocks from one another, in the same night.
Security concerns on this level just haven’t been an issue historically at these venues. And yet, for CONMEBOL’s event, it was.
Let's consider even more context. Security was by no means CONMEBOL’s sole flub throughout this tournament.
The 2024 tourney's eventual champion, Argentina (who defeated Colombia 1-0 in Sunday’s final), kicked off its title run by being forced to play on a widely-criticized, poorly-produced pitch in Atlanta for their opening match versus Canada.
Grass quality was an issue bemoaned by players at several stadiums (AT&T Stadium aside, notably) during the tournament, seemingly the result of a lack of planning and organization. The Argentina-Canada pitch, for instance, was laid in just three days.
Meanwhile, astronomical ticket prices calculated by dynamic pricing algorithms led to half-empty, 70,000-seat stadiums playing host to games throughout the tournament’s early goings.
Hey, why pay high prices when you can just – as we all saw on Sunday – storm the gates and get in for free?
It’s tough to blame fans for not wanting to fork over their hard-earned cash to CONMEBOL, whose greed was on full display all throughout this tournament.
CONMEBOL, it seems, was hoping to right previous wrongs this year.
When the United States hosted Copa America Centenario in 2016, U.S. Soccer made around $75 million according to ESPN, which ballooned their cash-on-hand from $65.4 million at the end of the 2016 fiscal year to $104.6 million at the end of the 2017 fiscal year. Once the dust on that 2016 tournament settled, ESPN reported that the consensus was CONMEBOL “left money on the table.”
Maybe that’s why the federation felt compelled to charge media members $25 for a hot dog meal? At other events – including a USMNT group match at AT&T Stadium I covered for WFAA – there was nothing available to media members working the games. No food. No snacks. Literally just water.
Is feeding journalists at the top of the list of things fans might care about? Of course not. But it shows how CONMEBOL either entirely miscalculated their host market or was trying to pinch every possible penny they could.
To me, the $100-plus “nosebleed seats” CONMEBOL sold for the games at Jerry World – not even including parking and concessions, it should be noted – suggests the latter.
Even fans watching at home had poor experiences. During the group stage match between the U.S. and Uruguay, the TV broadcast cameras were placed at such an astronomical height, it practically appeared as if you were watching the game from space. While that feed was eventually switched as the game went on, it wasn’t the only flub of the tournament’s broadcasts. Sunday’s final, for instance, saw the audio and video portions of the broadcast falling out of sync.
Meanwhile, officiating was objectively awful throughout the tournament, with broadcast crews questioning the referees in seemingly every game.
It’s tough, frankly, to think of anything that went right during this rendition of Copa. Over the course of the tournament, four different coaches were suspended for a game for returning to the field late for second-half play. And let’s not even get started with the repeated shows of racism that further marred the tournament.
Is it surprising that these countless blunders finally reached their boiling point with the Miami Mess and Brawl at the Bank? Hardly.
What’s surprising is that attending fans, national team coaches and players have used all this to question America’s ability to host the upcoming World Cup in 2026. Fact is, the issues experienced at these World Cup venues during Copa America are not indicative of an inability to host big events. They’re, quite clearly given the volume of errors that all point back to the same culprit, indicative of CONMEBOL’s shortcomings – and nothing else.
I mean, seriously: CONMEBOL booked Shakira to play the halftime show at the final, and they couldn’t even convince her to play her hit World Cup song “Waka Waka”?
What are we even doing here?