Copa America

Played by member countries of the Confederacion Sudamericana de Futbol (CONMEBOL), the Copa América is the world's oldest international continental football competition.
The first edition of what was known as the Campeonato Sudamericano de Football was held from 2 July to 17 July in 1916 including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil.
Some fifty years before the European Nations Cup commenced, South America launched its own continental championship.

Uruguay and Argentina met in competitive international matches as early as 1905, first for the Copa Lipton and then the Copa Newton.

In 1910, to commemorate the centenary of the May Revolution, Argentina's FA decided to expand the competition to include other neighbouring countries. Three agreed to participate in the first tournament staged in Argentina. Brazil later withdrew, so leaving the hosts, Uruguay and Chile.

However, as the South American Football Confederation was not formed until 1916, the 1910 tournament is generally regarded as unofficial.

After Argentina and Uruguay dominated the early years of the Copa América, there was a six-year halt between 1929 and 1935 as it fell victim to the emergence of the World Cup and protracted disputes regarding the introduction of professionalism.
The competition was disrupted again in the 1940s by a players' strike. The whole event had entered a period of great disruption.

The championship was not played on a regular basis and many editions would be deemed unofficial, only to be considered valid later on by CONMEBOL. For example, Argentina would be the first team to win three consecutive titles by winning the championships of 1945, 1946 and 1947.

After those three annual tournaments, the competition returned to being held every two years, then three and later four. There were even two tournaments held in 1959, one in Argentina and a second in Ecuador. In 1949 the players' strike in Argentina led to some of their top stars, including the legendary Alfredo di Stefano, to play in a pirate league in Colombia.

Such disharmony is now a distant memory. In 2016, the centenary of the tournament was celebrated with the Copa América Centenario tournament hosted in the United States; the tournament was the first to be hosted outside of South America and had an expanded field of 16 teams from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF.

In April 2016, a new trophy specifically designed for the Copa América Centenario was introduced at the Colombian Football Federation headquarters of Bogota to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the competition.

It was based on the original Copa América trophy which was donated to the Association by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Ernesto Bosch, in 1910 for the inaugural tournament in Argentina.