Copa Rio (international tournament)

Copa Rio
Founded	1951
Region	Europe ; South America
Most successful club(s)	Palmeiras (1); Fluminense (1)

The Copa Rio (Rio Cup) was the first intercontinental club football tournament, contested on two occasions, in 1951 and 1952, in Brazil. Both editions were organised and endorsed by CBD (Confederação Brasileira de Desportos- Brazilian Sports Confederation), the then Brazilian FA. The tournament, having been organized only by the Brazilian FA, is often regarded in Brazil as an official tournament though only as far as the Brazilian clubs are concerned.[1][note 1][note 2][note 3] Both editions were contested between eight teams from Europe and South America, divided into two four-team groups, one in São Paulo and the other in Rio de Janeiro, at Pacaembu stadium in São Paulo and Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro (the name Copa Rio, Portuguese for Rio Cup, was a homage to Rio de Janeiro City). The competition was the brainchild of Brazilian sports journalist Mário Filho, from Jornal dos Sports newspaper, who envisaged it as a Club World Cup (based on the FIFA World Cup for nations, held in Brazil in 1950) to be permanently held in Brazil, turning (according to him) Rio de Janeiro as "world's club football capital city". The Brazilian FA endorsed his idea, and organised the competition with a view to creating a Club World Cup. Two top-ranking, FIFA-related officials helped organise the competition, framing the tournament model and helping convince European clubs to participate: Ottorino Barassi and Stanley Rous (the latter having participated only for the 1951 tournament, and the former for both 1951-1952 tournaments and also for the 1953 successor tournament). FIFA president Jules Rimet made statements praising and bidding good luck to the initiative of the Brazilian FA. The Brazilian press, at the time of the tournament, dubbed it a "club world cup", a label that would later be applied to the Intercontinental Cup (1960–2004) and the FIFA Club World Cup.

The status of the competition as a "club world cup" is heatedly disputed in Brazil, as the 1951 winning club Palmeiras, and also the 1952 winning club Fluminense, regard themselves as the first ever club football world champions. In 2014, FIFA acknowledged the 1951 Copa Rio as "the first worldwide club competition and Palmeiras as its winner;"[12] however, it was later stated that FIFA did not endow the competition with the same status of the present-day FIFA Club World Cup[13] or the Intercontinental Cup (the latter being the only competition not organized directly by FIFA that the FIFA Council has unquestionably defined, in FIFA official documents, as a "club world championship" in equal status to the FIFA Club World Cup).[4][14][15][16][17]

Two editions of the Copa Rio were held, in 1951 and 1952. Brazilian club Palmeiras won the 1951 tournament, and Fluminense, also from Brazil and co-organizer of the 1952 edition (CBD, the Brazilian FA, entitled Fluminense to organise the 1952 tournament as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations- the second edition of the tournament was originally scheduled to 1953, but was advanced to 1952 for the aforementioned anniversary celebrations) won the competition in 1952. The competition was succeeded by another tournament, the Torneio Octogonal Rivadavia Corrêa Meyer, which was then often referred to also as Copa Rio by the European press, which was won by Vasco da Gama from Brazil. This tournament, however, consisted predominantly of domestic teams (five Brazilian sides, and three foreign clubs), thus losing part of the intercontinental aspect of its predecessors. Originally, the 1953 competition intended to include four Brazilian teams and four foreign teams; however the Uruguayan Football Association prohibited Nacional from participating due to the schedule of the Uruguayan domestic league, and this club was replaced by Brazilian Fluminense, as there was not enough time to search for a foreign replacement.

History

1952 Copa Rio won by Fluminense

According to Brazilian newspapers O Estado de São Paulo and Jornal do Brasil, and Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo, the original plan of the Brazilian FA (organiser of Copa Rio) was to organise the competition with the reigning champion clubs of the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo state Leagues (the first Brazilian national cup, named Taça Brasil, was not established until 1959, and the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo state leagues were – and still are – the strongest state leagues in Brazil), as well as the reigning club champions from Portugal, Uruguay, Italy, Sweden, Spain and England (the best-ranked nations at the 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil, except for Portugal - in the case of the Portuguese champion Sporting CP, the club was invited in order to please the huge Portuguese community living in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). Some sources cite the Scottish champion as part of the original plan, instead of the Swedish one; the invitation to the Scottish champion would be based on Scotland being as successful as England in the British Home Championship. According to the original plan, countries such as France, Argentina, the USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and West Germany (all strong footballing nations) were not to be invited as they did not participate in the 1950 World Cup (it must be borne in mind that, as of 1950, countries such as Germany and the Iron Curtain ones were excluded from international football competitions, due to the political tensions at the beginning of the post-II War, Cold War international order). However, the French side Nice was accepted to the competition following the organizers' failure to bring a Spanish side. Also due to the failure to bring teams from Britain and Sweden, the competition organizers accepted clubs from Austria (at the time, the most successful federation at the Mitropa Cup) and Yugoslavia (the next highest-ranked nation at the 1950 World Cup). In 1952, the Brazilian Football Confederation invited teams from Argentina and West Germany, which were not invited for the 1951 edition of the tournament.

Some clubs were invited to the competition and declined to participate:

In 1951: AC Milan (Italy), Atlético Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain) Tottenham (England), Newcastle United (England), Malmö FF (Sweden), Hibernian (Scotland), and Rapid Wien (Austria).

In 1952: Juventus (Italy), AC Milan (Italy), Internazionale (Italy), Millonarios (Colombia), Hibernian (Scotland), Newcastle United (England), Barcelona (Spain), Real Madrid (Spain) and Nice (France).

Several of these refusals were due to the concurrence of the 1951 Latin Cup, in which AC Milan and Atlético Madrid participated. French club OGC Nice withdrew from the 1951 Latin Cup in order to participate in the Copa Rio. Barcelona, OGC Nice and Juventus played the 1952 Latin Cup and decline the Copa Rio. Real Madrid, invited to the 1952 Copa Rio, negotiated with both the Brazilian FA and the Venezuelan FA and chose instead to play in the Venezuelan "Pequeña Copa del Mundo," staged simultaneously to Copa Rio. Millonarios declined its invitation in 1952 due to participation in the "Pequeña Copa del Mundo" as well. Inter Milan declined on the grounds that the club's board of directors felt that the team was not "up to the level of such competition" following a crushing defeat to minor Italian side Pro-Patria. The indifference of British clubs expressed in the 1970s towards the Intercontinental Cup may suggest an explanation for Tottenham, Newcastle and Hibernian's non-participation in Copa Rio for similar reasons. Tottenham may have also been facing financial difficulties, as the club cancelled a trip to Argentina in 1951 as well.

Some clubs accepted the invitation to participate but were not able to do so, while others requested invitations and were denied. In 1951, Mexican club Atlas requested participation and were denied, while the Indian Football Association requested the participation of a representative club and were also denied. In 1952 the Argentinian FA refused to allow its national champion Racing Club to participate, while FC Nürnberg (West Germany) were prevented from participating in 1952 due to a West Germany 1950-1952 federal law prohibiting national clubs from participating in tournaments abroad (FC Saarbrücken took its berth, since that law did not apply to clubs from the Saarland Protectorate due to political reasons). In 1952, Dinamo Zagreb (then Yugoslavia, presently Croatia) requested participation and were denied. Also in 1952, Uruguayan club Peñarol withdrew from the Copa Rio in their semi-final second leg match, resulting in a walkover forfeiture against Corinthians, citing "lack of security" after their first semi-final match ended in a brawl.

In 1951, the whole Brazilian press (all of the 10 Brazilian newspapers that have been researched on the issue)[18] hailed the competition as a "World Champions Cup". Still in 1951, the competition received criticism in the Brazilian press, as the quality of participants ended up being far below the original plan, as many clubs declined participation: as the invited English, Scottish, Swedish and Spanish clubs declined to participate, and the Italian representative ended up being the second option (for the reigning Italian champion was AC Milan, not Juventus), thus 4 out of the 5 European participants were not part of the original plan, being the Portuguese champion the sole exception (the one club that had not been invited due to technical criteria, but to please the Portuguese-Brazilian community). Therefore, later in 1951, the Brazilian FA announced that the following editions of the competition were to be hailed only as Taça Rio, or Copa Rio (Portuguese for Rio Cup), without the label "World Champions Cup" any more. Probably as a consequence of it (and probably also as a consequence of the quality of the participants of the 1952 edition having been perceived by the Brazilian press and cheerers as below the 1951 one), only 3 Brazilian newspapers (amongst 10 researched) referred to the 1952 edition as being a "World Champions Cup".

According to the Estado de São Paulo, due to the difficulties in bringing European sides to compete in Brazil, the CBD (Brazilian Sports Confederation) decided that its 1953 intercontinental competition should feature four Brazilian sides and four foreign sides, rather than six foreign sides. The schedule of the 1953 competition (the Torneio Octogonal Rivadavia Corrêa Meyer) followed this decision; however, the Uruguayan Football Association prohibited Nacional from participating due to the close scheduling of the Uruguayan domestic league, and the club was replaced by Brazilian side Fluminense, as there was not enough time to search for a foreign substitute. Thus the competition included five Brazilian sides and three foreign sides instead. The 1953 competition also saw some clubs being invited and declining to participate. Rot-Weiss Essen (West Germany) and Partizan (from Belgrade, Serbia, then Yugoslavia) were invited and accepted to participate but were then uninvited by the Brazilian Sports Confederation. In the case of Rot-Weiss Essen, their invitation followed their German Cup win, and the un-invitation followed a 4–0 defeat in a friendly match in Essen against America (Rio de Janeiro) (not viewed in Brazil as a top club). Rot-Weiss Essen sued the CBD for financial compensation, taking the case to FIFA (the results of the case are unknown). Despite the competition's new name and different distribution of domestic and foreign clubs, some sources (1953 editions of both O Estado de São Paulo and El Mundo Deportivo) referred to the 1953 competition as the same tournament of 1951–52, while other sources (RSSSF and 1953 editions of the Jornal do Brasil) treated it as a successor tournament.[note 4]

Status of the competition

FIFA

A number of requests for recognition of the Copa Rio as an officially recognized "club world champion-crowning" tournament have been made to FIFA, primarily by 1951 Copa Rio winners Palmeiras and the Brazilian FA (nowadays named CBF- Confederação Brasileira de Futebol).

In 2006, Palmeiras prepared a document for FIFA, detailedly describing the 1951 Copa Rio, in order to request official confirmation of their conquest as the first ever club football world championship.[19][20][21][13] The document sustained that the participation of FIFA officials Stanley Rous and Ottorino Barassi in the organisation of the 1951 competition was a clear indication of FIFA's blessing to it in 1951, sustaining that FIFA had assigned Barassi to represent FIFA in the organisation of the tournament (in reality, in a 1951 interview, the FIFA president Jules Rimet, while praising the Brazilian initiative, denied any FIFA involvement). Rous and Barassi were primarily involved in negotiations with European clubs, while Barassi also helped organize the framework of the competition. Ottorino Barassi participated in the organisation of the competition also in 1952, and in its 1953 sucessor-tournament, though only through telephone contact, with no evidence that he came to Brazil personally in 1952 and 1953 as he did several times for the 1951 edition, for example having been present in Brazil for its final match.[note 4]

In May 2007, Palmeiras received a letter from FIFA, signed by then Secretary-General Urs Linsi, recognizing Palmeiras as club world champions of 1951.[21] However, this decision was later withdrawn by FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who declared that the matter was still being evaluated. On April 26th, FIFA announced that the procedure to make this decision had not been completed yet, and that the issue had been dealt with only at administrative level, by the General-Secretariat, though, given the importance of the matter, it should be submitted to the FIFA Executive Committee.[22] In December 2007, FIFA declared that the first Club World Cup was played in 2000, thus not recognizing the Copa Rio as an official FIFA event.[23]

In April 2013, in communication to then Brazilian Minister of Sports, Aldo Rebelo, then FIFA General-Secretary, Jérôme Valcke, again recognised Palmeiras as champions of the "first Club World Cup ever held" (as written in the document).

In 2014, the FIFA Executive Committee recognized Palmeiras as champions of the "first worldwide club competition" (as written in the document).

On July 22nd 2016, FIFA celebrated the 65-year anniversary of the 1951 Copa Rio title won by Palmeiras. On instagram, FIFA posted: "Green is the color of envy. 'The Big Green' were the envy of the wide world # On this day 65 years ago. A Liminha-inspired Palmeiras edged a Juventus team including Giampiero Boniperti & a Danish triumvirate to become the sport's first intercontinental world club champions. 100,000 watched that at the Maracanã. One million flooded the streets of São Paulo to welcome their heroes home". (as written in the post).[24]

A distinction between a "worldwide competition" (worldwide in reach but that does not necessarily indicate the world champion) and a "competition awarding the label of world champion" rose in January 2017, when FIFA issued the following statement, whereby FIFA mentioned both Copa Rio and the Intercontinental Cup as examples (by using the expression such as) of competitions whose existence FIFA hailed as positive:

"At its meeting in Sao Paulo on 7 June 2014 the FIFA Executive Committee agreed to the request presented by CBF to acknowledge the 1951 tournament between European and South American clubs as the first worldwide club competition, and Palmeiras as its winner. FIFA acknowledges and values the initiatives to establish worldwide club competitions throughout history. This is the case of tournaments involving European and South American clubs, such as the pioneering Copa Rio, played in 1951 and 1952, and the Intercontinental Cup. However, it was not until 2000 that FIFA organised the maiden FIFA Club World Cup, with representatives from all six confederations. The winners of this competition, which went on to be staged annually from 2005 onwards, are the ones officially considered by FIFA as club world champions.[25][26]

In October 2017, FIFA changed its long-standing position on the Intercontinental Cup and officially recognized (with due official FIFA Council approval) all its champions, from 1960 to 2004, as club world champions, in equal status to the FIFA Club World Cup winners, though through different competitions. Both Intercontinental Cup and FIFA Club World Cup winners are listed as world champions in the FIFA Club World Cup Statitical Kit, FIFA's official document on its club competition. Copa Rio has never been listed in this document, prompting controversy in Brazil on the extent to which FIFA recognised, or did not recognise, Copa Rio.[27]

In April 2019, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, interviewed by the Brazilian media, reiterated FIFA's perspective that only the winners of the Intercontinental Cup and the Club World Cup are officially recognised world champions:

"We have already decided to give the title of world champion to everyone who has won the Cup between Europe and South America since 1960. 1951 is a little further back".
— Gianni Infantino, FIFA President. Brasilia, 9 April 2019.[28]

"The world title of Palmeiras... For miracles, you have ask another, not me..."
— Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA. Brasilia, 9 April 2019.[29]

The ever-changing position of FIFA on the issue, since 2007, and the extent of its recognition of Copa Rio, has turned into a matter of controversy in Brazil, with some speculation that FIFA's recurring changes of position on the 1951 Copa Rio happened lest a full-fledged recognition of Copa Rio 1951 (as given to the Intercontinental Cup) might propel other clubs to make similar "recognition requests" for other competitions, mainly competitions in the 1950s, such as the 1952 edition of Copa Rio, its 1953 successor tournament (Rivadavia Correa Meyer), and also Pequeña Copa del Mundo, all held before the onset of the Intercontinental Cup in 1960 as a UEFA/CONMEBOL-endorsed "best club of the world" contest.

In South America

In Brazil, in 1951 the competition was truly regarded as a Club World Cup, and the participating Brazilian teams (Vasco da Gama, Palmeiras, Corinthians, and Fluminense) approached it with a level of importance they would later on entitle only to major football trophies such as the Brazilian Championship, the Copa Libertadores, the Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. In Brazil, the Copa Rio was regarded as more important than the contemporary Venezuelan friendly international competition, the Pequeña Copa del Mundo. In 1951 Vasco da Gama cancelled a trip to Europe in order to play in the Copa Rio, and in 1953 Vasco da Gama declined the invitation to play the 1953 "Pequeña Copa de Mundo" in order to play the 1953 Copa Rio-successor-tournament. The reigning Uruguayan champion participated in both editions of Copa Rio, what can be interpreted as a sign of the competition's prestige in that country, the only South American one that had been champion of the FIFA World Cup by 1951. In the case of Argentina, its national football association then had severed relations with the Brazilian FA, since year 1949, resulting in its absence from both the 1950 FIFA World Cup and the Copa Rio.

In Europe

In most of Europe, the Copa Rio apparently did not have the same prestige as it had in South America, as many clubs declined participation in favor of other prestigious tournaments such as the Latin Cup. This can be compared to the fact that, later on, European clubs would entitle to the UEFA Champions League much more importance than entitled to the Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup, having forfeited participation in the Intercontinental Cup many times in the 1970's (which has been clear in the case of British, German and Dutch clubs, and not so much in the case or Spanish, Portuguese and Italian clubs), whereas South Americans entitle enormous importance to world/intercontinental cups as the IC and the FCWC. It must be pointed out that, as a competition organised by the Brazilian FA, participation in Copa Rio was non-compulsory for non-Brazilian clubs; the case being different from the IC and the FCWC, in which participation of the UEFA Champions League club champion was compulsory under UEFA and FIFA rules (as an example, Barcelona considered the possibility of not participating in the 1992 Intercontinental Cup, and the contractual obligation with UEFA weighed in for its decision to participate).

The 1951 tournament was hailed enthusiastically in Italy, the only European country that had been champion of the FIFA World Cup by 1951. The Italian press regarded the competition as an "impressive project" that "was greeted so enthusiastically by FIFA officials Stanley Rous and Jules Rimet to the extent of almost giving it an official FIFA stamp;"[30] Describing Juventus's acceptance to participate in the 1951 tournament, the Italian press stated that "an Italian club could not be missing in such an important and worldwide-reaching event".[31] As the final list of participants turned out to be not of the same quality of the original plan, this fact was also criticized by the Italian press; as an example, Vittorio Pozzo wrote an article criticising Copa Rio for not featuring representatives of Argentina, Scotland and England (the Brazillian newspapers Jornal dos Sports criticised him back, stating that the 1934 and 1938 World Cups won by Italy under Pozzo's guidance did not feature Uruguay, Scotland and England either).

1951 Copa Rio

The tournament was organized from 30 June to 22 July and featured players such as Vavá, Ademir of Vasco da Gama, Jair da Rosa Pinto of Palmeiras, José Santamaría, Walter Taibo, goalkeeper Anibal Paz, Luis Volpi of Nacional, Branko Stankovic, Rajko Mitic of Red Star Belgrade, Giampiero Boniperti, Danish Karl Aage Præst and John Hansen of Juventus, José Travassos of Sporting Lisbon, and Swedish Lennart Samuelsson and Antoine Bonifaci of Nice. Juventus's coach was legendary Hungarian György Sárosi.

Teams

Vasco da Gama (1950 Rio de Janeiro state champions)
Sporting CP (1950/51 Portuguese champions)
Austria Wien (1949/50 Austrian champions)[note 5]
Nacional (1950 Uruguayan champions)
Palmeiras (1950 São Paulo state champions)
OGC Nice (1950/51 French champions)
Red Star (1951 Yugoslav champion)
Juventus (1949/50 Italian champion)[note 6]

Rio de Janeiro Group

All matches played at Estádio do Maracanã.

Teams	GP	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Points
Vasco da Gama	3	3	0	12	3	9	6
Austria Wien	3	2	1	7	6	1	4
Nacional	3	1	2	4	8	-4	2
Sporting CP	3	0	3	4	10	-6	0

30 June: Austria Wien 4−0 Nacional
1 July: Vasco da Gama 5−1 Sporting CP
3 July: Nacional 3−2 Sporting CP
5 July: Vasco da Gama 5−1 Austria Wien
7 July: Sporting CP 1−2 Austria Wien
8 July: Vasco da Gama 2−1 Nacional

São Paulo Group

All matches played at Estádio do Pacaembu.

Teams	GP	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Points
Juventus	3	3	0	10	4	6	6
Palmeiras	3	2	1	5	5	0	4
OGC Nice	3	1	2	4	7	-3	2
Red Star	3	0	3	4	7	-3	0

30 June: Palmeiras 3−0 OGC Nice
1 July: Juventus 3−2 Red Star
3 July: OGC Nice 2−3 Juventus
5 July: Palmeiras 2−1 Red Star
7 July: Red Star 1−2 OGC Nice
8 July: Palmeiras 0−4 Juventus

Semi-finals

São Paulo

12 July: Austria Wien 3−3 Juventus
14 July: Juventus 3−1 Austria Wien

Rio de Janeiro

12 July: Vasco da Gama 1−2 Palmeiras
15 July: Vasco da Gama 0−0 Palmeiras

Finals

18 July 1951

1st Leg

Palmeiras	1–0	Juventus
Rodrigues 20'	Report

Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro

Attendance: 56,961

Referee: Franz Grill (Austria)

22 July 1951

2nd Leg

Juventus	2–2	Palmeiras
Præst 18' K. Hansen 63'	Report	Rodrigues 47' Liminha 77'

Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro

Attendance: 100,093

Referee: Gabriel Tordjan (France)

Champion

Palmeiras
First title