CONMEBOL announces 14 host cities for 2024 Copa América as tournament returns to the US
The 14 cities are Las Vegas (NV), Arlington (TX), Charlotte (NC), Orlando (FL), Miami Gardens (FL), Santa Clara (CA), Atlanta (GA), East Rutherford (NJ), Houston (TX), Austin (TX), Inglewood (CA), Glendale (AZ), Kansas City (KS) and Kansas City (MO).
The tournament opener will be played at Atlanta United’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, with the final taking place at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
It will be only the second time, after the special centenary Copa América in 2016, that the tournament has been hosted outside of South America.
Ecuador was originally designated as the tournament host but pulled out in November 2022 due to economic and security concerns, as well as a lack of viable stadiums.
That reportedly left just the US and Peru as the two nations willing to host the 2024 edition, with CONMEBOL and CONCACAF – the federation for North America, Central America and the Caribbean – jointly choosing the US in January of this year.
Though the US unquestionably has better stadium infrastructure than any South American nation, the decision to once again host the tournament stateside led to some criticism in Latin America.
“South America is having a hard time organizing its historic national team tournament,” Ezequiel Fernández Moores wrote in Argentine outlet La Nación in February.
CONMEBOL has encountered obstacles in hosting the last three editions of the Copa América held in South America. In 2015, the host nation was changed from Brazil to Chile due to the former already hosting the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
Colombia was set to co-host the 2020 edition with Argentina, before it was postponed by a year due to the Covid pandemic. Protests across the country the following year led to Colombia withdrawing as co-host, with Argentina following suit soon after as the country grappled with high Covid cases.
The tournament was eventually moved to Brazil and played behind closed doors.
Now, for the third edition in a row, the host nation has been changed after the US took over organizing duties from Ecuador.
However, Fernández Moores questioned why the same scrutiny, particularly around safety, isn’t applied to the United States.
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