Less than one week into the Copa America Centenario, being held across the U.S., "it is clear that putting on a successful major international football tournament requires much more than just having lots of big stadiums, airports and hotels," according to the AFP. Attention "has been focused on some high-profile, embarrassing gaffes, particularly two separate national anthem mix-ups, but complaints have also focused on the choice of kick-off times, the travel itineraries and the general atmosphere around the tournament." To say that "mainstream America has been caught up in 'Copa fever' would be a gross exaggeration." TV network Fox boasted that "the opening game between the hosts and Colombia drew over 1.5 million viewers but that is less than half of one percent of the population and well below the levels of most major sports events" on U.S. TV.
Not surprisingly, Spanish language network Univision "has performed better, with the network saying they averaged 2.9 million viewers over the opening weekend," which it says was 14% higher than its figures for the group stage of the last World Cup. Uruguayan FA President Wilmar Valdez "launched a withering attack on the tournament." Valdez, who as an official of the South American confederation CONMEBOL, took part in the decision to play the event in the U.S. said that "had been the wrong call." Valdez: "CONMEBOL made a mistake by holding a tournament of this nature, a cup with some of the oldest national teams in the world and in South American football here in the United States." He said that the game was a "passion" in South America but that the U.S. was "a country where they don't feel football" or "live and breathe it" and said that "brings about problems." Organizers said that they "have had to work on a tight schedule given that the competition was only finally confirmed as taking place on October 23 last year, after a series of corruption scandals in the CONMEBOL and CONCACAF confederations" (AFP, 6/8).
