Splash The Cash: Copa Libertadores Final In Lima Comes At A High Price

Every fortnight from across Rio de Janeiro’s social stratosphere lawyers, asset managers and even former players gather at a famous bar in upscale Leblon where they sing, dance and drink to the tunes of their Flamengo compulsion. From ‘Casa Clipper’ they embark on the ‘Urubus’, a rebranded old-timer bus in the club’s black and red colors, to the match. It’s a proper fan bus with a unique tweak: standing only, in a homage to the old ‘geral’ at the Maracana Stadium.

As the bus crosses the city, it passes Lagoa, Jardim Botanico and Christ Redeemer, some of Rio’s main landmarks. The singing goes crescendo and Ony Coutinho, the driving force behind the Urubus, beams: this is Flamengo’s moment, and these are moments worth living for. 

Ony, a lifelong Flamengo fan, and his son Ony Jr. will also attend the Copa Libertadores final in Lima, Peru. Last month, the youngest of the Onys sat at the ready when South America’s ruling body Conmebol shifted the final from Santiago to Lima over Chile’s social unrest. As he searched the web from the moment the decision was announced, flights spiked every few minutes by a good $20. He picked up the phone, and 55 minutes later, it was a done deal: he got his father and himself on $900 return flights via Santa Cruz in Bolivia with Avianca.

Others have been less lucky: Latam and Gol, two giants of the South American airline industry, have tried to accommodate fans, but weeks before the final flights to the Peruvian capital spiraled out of control with return tickets costing as much as $3,000. So fans have been creative: taking a detour via Miami, hopping on to the bus in São Paulo for a 95-hour journey or simply exploring every potential gateway to Lima, including travel plans through the Amazon rainforest. 

Last week Conmebol released a batch of 7,300 entrance tickets at $250 in category 1 and $150 in category 2, and on Wednesday a further 4,200 tickets were put on general sale. An outcry has followed: Fans want to purchase tickets, but no living soul can still afford to fly to Lima. Conmebol has stretched fan spending to the limit, but, perversely, that is precisely what it envisaged. The unfortunate last-minute switch to Santiago aside, the governing body always wanted to mimic the European Champions League with its one-off final format. 

Tales of extraordinary fan spending for the Champions League final are legion as the soccer industry and big business cash in on club love. A concerted effort to normalize prices is rare, if non-existent. Does Conmebol want to employ the same exploitative model? The shift away from the traditional home-and-away final is a step in that direction. In South America, distances are huge, travel expensive and inequality extreme. Lima prices have excluded ordinary fans from the final.

And so the era of the consumer fan has also arrived in South America, previously perhaps the last bastion of an unhinged and unchecked system of passion, which is a huge part of the allure for both outsiders and marketability for executives. Earlier this month, Asuncion staged the final of the Copa Sudamericana, the equivalent of the Europa League, between Colon of Argentina and Ecuador’s Independiente del Valle. The Paraguayan capital was close enough for Colon’s fans to flock in large numbers to the game and so the final was deemed a success. In 2018, Conmebol had taken the decision to introduce single finals. 

Last year, the Boca-River derby became a transatlantic exercise, signaling perhaps an even darker future with the prospect of auctioning off continental club finals to the highest bidder: the Champions League final in New York? You get the picture. Fifa rules stipulate that all official fixtures of this nature must be staged in the area covered by the ruling governing body. 

On Saturday, Ony will be among the lucky fans to witness Flamengo return to the Copa Libertadores decider for the first time since 1981 when the Rio club and Zico needed three games to defeat Chile’s Cobreloa. That format now belongs to the past and so does perhaps much of what the Copa Libertadores final once stood for.