The South American Championship of Champions (Spanish: Campeonato Sudamericano de Campeones,[1]Portuguese: Campeonato Sul-Americano de Campeões[2]) was a football competition played in Santiago, Chile in 1948 and the first continental-wide football tournament in South America. Hosted and organized by Chilean club Colo-Colo, it was played between February 11 and March 17. Vasco da Gama won the competition after earning the most points in the round-robin tournament.
This tournament is seen as a precursor of the Copa Libertadores[3] and is considered, along with the Copa Aldao (also named "Copa Río de La Plata"), as an important stepping stone towards its creation.[4][5]
Since the early 1910s, Argentine and Uruguayan clubs disputed the Copa Aldao, a tournament played between the national champions of each nation's top national leagues. The great success of this tournament gave birth to the idea of a continental competition.
In 1929, the head executives of Nacional, Roberto Espil and José Usera Bermúdez, idealized a competition between the national champions of each Conmebol member. After analyzing the geographical distributions and distances, Espil devised a project in 1946 which also included the runners-up of every national league. However, it was Colo-Colo's head executive, Robinson Alvarez Marín, that first put it into practice and hatched the idea in the late 1930s.[6][7] In 1948, Luis Valenzuela, as president of the confederation, finally set into motion the antecedent of the Copa Libertadores: the "Copa de Campeones".[4]
Vasco da Gama had already defeated Lítoral and Emelec 1-0 each, thumped Nacional 3-1, trashed Municipal 4-0 and tied 1-1 with the host club Colo-Colo. The competition was as successful financially as it was on the field: the average public attendance per game was 39,549 spectators and the tournament generated a gross of CLP 9,493,483.[9]
The tournament was also the kickoff to the creation of the European Cup in Europe. French journalist Jacques Ferran, present during the competition, was covering the Championship for French newspaper L'Equipe. Ferran became fascinated with the proceedings of the tournament and took the idea to Gabriel Hanot, the editor of L'Equipe, once he returned to Europe. Hanot, in turn, took the envisioned idea to UEFA.[10] The UEFA document on the history of the European Cup confirms that Jacques Ferran and Gabriel Hanot, journalists for the French sports newspaper L'Equipe, were the founding fathers of the European Cup.[11] In an interview to Brazilian sports TV programme Globo Esporte, broadcast on May 10, 2015, Ferran said that the South American Championship of Champions was the inspiration for the European Cup: "how could Europe, which wanted to be ahead of the rest of the world, not be able to accomplish a competition of the same kind of the South American one? We needed to follow that example", said Ferran to the Globo Esporte journalists.[12]
Afterwards
Vasco da Gama, though always considered themselves the first South American continental champions, had never asked Conmebol for recognition of that honour. However, in 1996 a Conmebol book, 30 Años de Pasión y Fiesta (30 Years of Passion and Party)[13] was discovered by Vasco da Gama executives. This book told the story of the Copa Libertadores, stating that the tournament of 1948 was the antecedente (predecessor) of the Libertadores. According to Conmebol Press Release of April 29, 1996,[14] Vasco da Gama's executives asked Conmebol's Executive Committee for the recognition of the aforementioned honour and the acceptance of Vasco da Gama as a participant at Supercopa.[15] In April 1996, Conmebol's Executive Committee recognised the meaning and importance of the competition as the precursor to the Copa Libertadores (though Conmebol did not come to regard it as an official Conmebol competition), thus Vasco da Gama's participated at Supercopa 1997, former Conmebol competition to which were admitted only the previous Copa Libertadores champions.[16][17]"in recognition of sporting achievement and its historical truth".[18]
Participants
The aim of the organizers was to invite the champion of the most important competition of each South American country. Most notable in the competition were the host Colo-Colo, the Alfredo Di Stéfano-inspired River Plate, the Atilio García-inspired Nacional, and Vasco da Gama,[19] the respective representatives of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, four countries whose clubs would go on to become the dominant powers of South American football, aggregately winning all Copa Libertadores from 1960 to 1978 and over 90% of the Copa Libertadores from 1960 to the present day.
^No national club championship existed then in Bolivia so the country was represented by the current champion of capital city La Paz.
^No national club championship existed then in Brazil so the champion of Rio de Janeiro Federal District, Vasco da Gama represented the country. They were given preference over Palmeiras, the São Paulo state champion, since Rio won the 1946 Championship of State Teams and thus was considered the champion of the stronger league.
^No national club championship existed then in Ecuador so Emelec, the Guayaquil Championship champion of 1946 was given preference over the Pichincha Championship champion as the 1947 South American Championship matches were held all at Emelec's stadium (Estadio George Capwell) and having Emelec's as the cornerstone of Ecuador's national team squad.
^Deportivo Municipal took part in place of the Peruvian champions Atlético Chalaco, who declined the invitation to participate.
Additional notes:
No organised club championship existed then in Colombia (that would eventually be commenced still in 1948, but later that year, in August, whereas the South American Club Championship was held in Feb-Mar 1948).
No reason is clear about the absence of a Paraguayan, though the 1947 Paraguayan Civil War may possibly have been the reason.
Venezuela would become a party to CONMEBOL only in 1952, 4 years after the South American Club Championship.
Chile
Vasco da Gama
River Plate
Bolivia
Ecuador
Peru
Uruguay
Máximo Mosquera
Lelé
