South America paralyzes, the three changes CONMEBOL plans for the Copa Libertadores

Boca and Fluminense will define, on November 4 at the Maracaná Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the 64th edition of the Copa Libertadores. That means that there have already been 63 champions of the top club tournament in America. Therefore, that is the number of plaques that the trophy has on its wooden base.

And according to a recent report on the social network Twitter by Uruguayan journalist Bambino Etchegoyen, there is only room for two more plates. In other words, Xeneize has the chance to win one of the last two that the cup would have in commemoration of the consecration, at least in the format that it was known until then.

The Copa Libertadores trophy is awarded to those who win the final of the tournament since its first edition in 1960 (Peñarol received it after defeating Olimpia). The idea of offering a definitive award to each winner of what was initially called the American Champions Cup came from Peruvian Teófilo Salinas, a member of the Conmebol Executive Committee in the 50s and 60s.

What are the three changes that CONMEBOL proposes based on this issue?

The first: expand the base, which was modified four times, the first after the consecration of Boca in 1977 (the first in its history) and the last in 2009 after the Estudiantes de La Plata title. The second: change all the plates and make new ones, reducing the size, in order to allow the same method of adding as new winners emerge. And the third, with which the trophy would lose one of its main characteristics, stop using metal badges to represent the winners. Between 1998 and 2007, the then sponsor of the Copa Libertadores (a major Japanese automobile company) gave the champion, along with the trophy, a silver plate with the name of the competition, the year and the signature of the sponsor in question. Since he stopped being a sponsor, the delivery of the plate was a modality that was abandoned.