Why Portugal isn't in COPA AMERICA?

This post was most recently updated on January 6th, 2023

Copa América is a football tournament played among teams from South America. As Portugal is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe and not in South America, it doesn’t qualify to play in the Copa América tournament.

However, that’s not always the case. Since the 1990s, teams from North America and Asia have also been invited to compete in COPA AMERICA. It is the oldest still-running continental football competition, as well as the third most watched in the world

But, to date, no European country has been invited to play with the team from South America. So Portugal doesn’t get to play in the COPA AMERICA tournament.

European countries have their own football tournament called UEFA. UEFA stands for Union of European Football Associations.

It governs football, futsal, and beach football in Europe and the Eurasian transcontinental countries of Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, as well as one Asian country Israel.

Many Portuguese want to see Cristiano Ronaldo play in COPA America but as per the rules, he can’t.

However, 2 other very popular footballers Lionel Messi and Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior get to play in COPA America. Neymar plays for Brazil and Messi plays for Argentina in the COPA America tournament.

Following is the image that shows the name of countries that hosted the COPA America tournament.