Xtra Time Web Desk: With just five days to go before the start of Copa America 2021, Brazil’s Supreme Court agreed to consider blocking the troubled tournament. The Brazilian national team’s players are also united against holding the tournament in the country.
COMEBOL are battling the odds to pull off the South American football championships this year despite the coronavirus pandemic. It has forced them into a last-minute search for an emergency host country that ended with the controversial choice of Brazil last week.
Brazil’s Supreme Court said it would rule Thursday on two requests to block the 10-nation tournament, which is scheduled to open Sunday and run through July 10.
Chief Justice Luiz Fux said given the “exceptional nature of the case,” he had decided to have the full 11-member court take up the matter in an extraordinary virtual session.
The Brazilian national team’s players are also against holding the tournament, but put to rest rumors that they were planning a boycott.
“We are against organizing the Copa America, but we will never say no to the Brazilian national team,” the players said in a joint statement on social media after their FIFA World Cup 2022 South American Qualifiers against Paraguay.
Already delayed by 12 months because of the pandemic, the Copa America — the world’s oldest running international football tournament — was originally due to be hosted by Colombia and Argentina.
However, the former fell through because of violent anti-government protests, and the latter because of a surge of Covid-19.
So far the pandemic has claimed more than 475,000 lives in Brazil, second only to the United States.