Proposed North-South American tournament in 2020 rejected by CONMEBOL

Put this on the pile of things that won’t happen along with the World Cup NIT tournament that was floated or the 2018 NASL Soccer Bowl. CONMEBOL returned Carlos Cordeiro’s note asking them to start a North-South American joint tournament and circled No.

Andrew Das from the New York Times originally reported the story and caught the follow up from Brazil’s Globo. Apparently, CONMEBOL noted that since FIFA had not yet sanctioned such a tournament they would not participate. That in addition to the change in timing for the Copa America to coincide with the UEFA European Championships was enough for the South American confederation to turn down the wheelbarrow full of money that Cordeiro guaranteed for playing in the tournament.

While this is disappointing, don’t say “why do you build me up buttercup just to let me down?” Das reports that USSF will still try to host a tournament that would be “scaled-down,” as he put it, with teams from Asia and Africa perhaps participating.