Copa America 2024: A Calamity of Errors

By
Ben Peres
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Some days removed from a chaotic 2024 Copa America final in Miami, we revisit the calamitous affair both in the title match and throughout the tournament itself. 

The 2024 Copa America is now in our rear view, and while CONMEBOL will want people to celebrate it for their favorite son, Lionel Messi, winning his third major tournament in a row, many will remember it for the grand sweeping failures from an event organization standpoint.

Whether it be the poor quality of the fields, abysmal refereeing, insufficient security protocols, or the farcical pricing strategy that left many stadiums half-full for games while others were wildly overpacked, the tournament organizers should consider witness protection and starting new careers. OK, that might be overdramatic, but it is not impossible that their lack of diligence and care could have led to the deaths of many in the crowds, injuries for players, and irreparable damage to CONCACAF’s reputation as a burgeoning footballing federation.

The first issue was the fields. For a while now, many people have bemoaned North America’s usage of turf fields over natural grass for soccer, and justifiably so. It is the only region with the majority of its professional teams playing on the surface.

For the tournament, however, it was well known that all matches needed to be played on grass. Organizers decided to standardize pitch dimensions across all host venues, and to put natural grass over any stadiums that have turf fields.

In theory, those sound like reasonable concessions to ensure a uniform experience on every field, however, the execution was poorly handled. Despite months of lead time, grass panels were put down in some stadiums just three days prior to the tournament, which created substandard playing surfaces. Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni and Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa, among many others, were incredibly critical of the pitch quality throughout the tournament.

Additionally, the uniform pitch dimensions caused issues in certain stadiums. At Dallas’ AT&T Stadium, there was little if any room past the corner flags, leaving players confined to short run-ups upon taking a corner. This is just the first glimpse of the severe shortsightedness when planning this tournament.

How can you claim to be a world-class football event, crowning the best team in the Americas when you can’t even comprehend and create the correct environment to host the match? Bielsa said it best in his impassioned rant against CONMEBOL during a press conference leading up to Uruguay’s third place match against Canada.

 

Then, there is the refereeing, which, from an outside perspective, showed how inept VAR (and referees in general) can be. A Canadian player was head-butted without consequence in a group stage match against Peru. Despite clear evidence upon VAR review for a “Serious Foul Play” check, not a single reprimand was made.

In the United States-Uruguay group stage match, there were several instances of dubious calls as well. The most blatant error came when official Kevin Ortega allowed play to continue in the midst of issuing a yellow card to U.S. men’s national team center back Chris Richards, leading to a near-goal opportunity for Uruguay. Later, when the U.S. looked to have an advantage despite a Uruguay foul, Ortega stopped play.

Per Sporting News, Ortega had only refereed six senior international matches before the U.S.-Uruguay match, and his inexperience was certainly on display throughout the duration of the game.

Later, the eventual game-winning goal would be shrouded in controversy as well, as goal scorer Mathias Olivera appeared to be offside prior to tapping in a rebound off a save from American goalkeeper Matt Turner, only for VAR to confirm the call on the field. CONMEBOL would release the VAR discussion that explained the decision, but it was anything but straightforward.

American captain Christian Pulisic appeared to have some harsh words for the referees both during and after the match, and upon offering a handshake after the final whistle, he was denied by one of them. While it could be understandable given the heated nature of Pulisic’s interactions with the officials throughout the duration of the game, you would think that a referee would still maintain a level of professionalism to at least shake a player’s hand after a match when offered.

This tournament was supposed to be a chance for CONMEBOL to reach a wider audience, yet they put on the most disrespectful showing from every angle, including the referees, who seemed woefully underprepared for the pressure of the tournament.

When it comes time to pick officials for the 2026 World Cup, you can only hope that the ones who participated in the 2024 Copa America will face harsh scrutiny before being selected.

The next key issue that appeared at this tournament was the naivety of organizers who believed that just because the games were in the U.S., they didn’t need to follow typical South American security protocols. The South Americans don’t segregate opposing fan groups because they want to; they do it because they have to.

Yet, the decision to let rival fans intermingle led to serious fights in the stands, and Uruguay players had to venture into the crowd to stand up for their families who were allegedly being abused following the semifinal match against Colombia. Thankfully, so far, there are no reported deaths following all of these clashes.

Before we move away from the topic of security, how can we avoid talking about what happened at the finals, with fans breaking into the stadium and a lack of security causing a nearly hour-and-a-half delay to the kickoff time.

According to reports, 7,000 fans were in attendance without tickets at the final, with videos of people crawling through ventilation shafts and stampeding their ways into the stadium being posted across social media channels.

In South America, there is often a military presence outside stadiums to ensure that no serious violence or overcrowding happens, yet once again, the organizers treated this game like it was a standard NFL game between two teams with no fan rivalry. The world of football has countless examples of tragedies occurring due to poor security measures, yet arrogance or neglect took over, and left fans feeling deeply unsafe and in legitimate potential danger. Hard Rock Stadium was left in disarray after the match.

Finally, while the organizers can’t control the secondary market (which caused the unbelievable prices for the semifinal and final matches), they can control the prices for the initial offering. Yet, in the typical greed that has run through the game across the globe, CONMEBOL chose to use a dynamic pricing system that had algorithms determining the ticket prices based on expected demand.

For the Peru-Chile group stage match, AT&T Stadium was at approximately 54% capacity. Ecuador vs. Venezuela at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, had an attendance of just under 30,000, well below the halfway mark of the 68,000-capacity venue.

This tournament is big enough and well-known enough that reasonable ticket prices would easily fill the majority of stadiums. The cheapest tickets were around $60 at face value, which is still quite expensive to sit at the top of an NFL stadium in the sweltering summer heat.

While there are varying opinions around the internet on who is to blame for this disgrace of a tournament, it doesn’t really matter. CONMEBOL should have followed their standard protocols and worked with local teams to ensure they understood the severity and necessity of more diligent security. CONCACAF should have looked at past failures and made alterations to the plans to ensure that these things didn’t happen.

In the sport of football, organizers and leaders of the governing bodies rarely, if ever, take ownership for their errors. There will probably be no statement of regret from either organization for the issues, and in fact, don’t be surprised if they try to shift blame to one another instead of owning up and saying, “We failed and we will right the wrongs for the 2026 World Cup.” Instead, all of the management teams will keep their jobs, and eventually, all will be forgotten because another scandal in the world of football will happen.

As a fan, it is time to demand better from leadership, as they are slowly and methodically stripping apart the joy of football and failing their way to the top.

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