United States may become permanent host of Copa America

ESPN Deportes is reporting that CONMEBOL and CONCACAF are working on making the Copa America a once-every-four-years tournament to be permanently hosted by the United States. MLS Soccer's report speculates this would be a merger of the Copa America and the Gold Cup into one tournament, but the original report on ESPN Deportes just suggests the United States would become the permanent host of the Copa America.

Apparently discussions have been ongoing for some time, with a CONCACAF spokesman indicating they were close, according to the ESPN Deportes report.

Some factors in negotiations included the United States having the infrastructure to host such a major tourney on a regular basis, and economic issues like timely prize money awards.

Of course, there is the matter of CONMEBOL countries perhaps not liking the idea of the US as the permanent host, especially considering the majority of participating nations are CONMEBOL teams.

As always, leave your opinions in the comments. Is a regular 4-year tournament in the United States part of the pathway to developing soccer in this country? Would the combination of the two tournaments (if they do in fact combine the Gold Cup and Copa America) possibly declutter the soccer calendar a bit, or should the tournaments remain separate?