translated from Spanish: Brazil confirmed its participation in the Copa America

The Brazilian football team confirmed on Tuesday, after the victory over Paraguay in the Qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, its participation as host of the Copa America to be played in Brazil and, although they denied a boycott, they expressed their dissatisfaction with the tournament.” We are against the organization of the Copa America, but we will never say no to the Brazilian national team,” the players and members of the Canarinha Coaching Staff said in a manifesto.Brasil agreed at the last minute to organize the tournament, which will be held between June 13 and July 10 in Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro , Cuiabá and Goiania after Colombia, for reasons of public order, and Argentina, due to the coronavirus health crisis, gave up on it.” It is important to note that at no time did we want to turn this discussion into a political issue,” said the manifesto, in which the athletes and coaches stressed that, despite being a “cohesive” group, it has “different ideas.” For various humanitarian and personal reasons we are dissatisfied with the conduct of the Copa America by CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation), whether it was assigned late to Chile – a country that was also considered – or in Brazil,” they said in the statement. All the recent events lead us to believe that its realization is an inadequate process, “said the members of the Canarinha, who, however, asserted that they are “workers and professionals of football” with “a mission to fulfill the history of the shirt ‘verdeamarela’ petaca champion world champion”. Tournament in the midst of the pandemicThe acceptance of hosting the tournament by the Government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in the midst of a pandemic that shows no firm signs of slowing down and that on Tuesday exceeded 17 million confirmed cases and 475 deaths associated with covid-19, provoked criticism in the country. On Thursday, the Supreme Court will even hold an extraordinary session to analyze a request presented by the opposition to Bolsonaro, which requests the immediate cancellation of the tournament on Brazilian soil. Bolsonaro, for his part, insisted that the tournament will be held with conmebol protocols applied to the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana and that the criticisms came from the Globo network, with whom the president maintains a tense dispute and that he will not have the rights to broadcast. Boycott rumorsThis week circulated in several local media that Brazilian players would give up participating and that meetings were held with the captains of other participating teams to establish a joint position on whether or not to participate in this controversial edition of the oldest national team tournament in the world. It was even mentioned about Tite’s departure from the technical command, despite the 100% performance, now with 18 points product of six victories in as many games and shuffling as his eventual replacement the name of Renato Gaúcho, who left this year to the Gremio de Porto Alegre.” We stand out to prevent further fake news from involving our names,” the players and coaching staff stressed in the manifesto. After the match in Asuncion, the defender Marquinhos told reporters that in the “context of the Copa America” the group “discussed a lot internally and externally,” but that much was said “without knowing the truths” of what was happening.” At no time do we refuse to wear this shirt, because that is our dream since childhood. So, the greatest pride is to be wearing this shirt and, from now on, we will see what is decided because there is a hierarchy and we are aware of our important role,” said the Paris Saint Germain defender.

Original source in Spanish