La Copa Bolivia is an official

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

competition organized by the

Bolivian Football Federation The Bolivian Football Federation ( es, Federación Boliviana de Fútbol, ; FBF) is the governing body of football in Bolivia. It was founded in 1925, making it the eighth oldest South American federation. It affiliated to CONMEBOL and FIFA in 192 ...

, which is played by the direct elimination system, the winner of which qualifies for a

Copa Simón Bolívar Copa or COPA may refer to: COPA COPA may refer to: * Computer Operator Programming Assistant. trade of ITI * Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet * Canadian Owners and Pilots Asso ...

History

La Copa Bolivia was first held in 1976 and is the oldest association football competition in Bolivia. Because it involves clubs of all standards playing against each other, there is the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament and even theoretically win the Cup, although lower division teams rarely reach the final. In 2002 it was replaced and transformed into the current

Aerosur Cup The Aerosur Cup was a Bolivian football tournament held in the La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, sponsored by Aerosur airline. The original idea was to make AeroSur Cup a tournament for the winning teams from previous seasons in the whole countr ...

. The tournament was created by the Bolivian National Football Association (ANF) so that the second of the associations had one more opportunity to qualify for National B, where promotion is played to the League. The initial game mode was aimed at classifying three teams to National B. It was played by the runner-up teams of the nine departmental associations, the runner-up of the Interprovincial Tournament and 2 teams as guests. The Bolivia Cup stopped being played as of the 2017 season. The ANF focused its argument on the fact that the clubs participating in the 2016 Bolivia Cup faced organizational problems, the lack of financial resources being the main obstacle. For the 2022 season of Bolivian soccer, the Bolivian Soccer Federation plans to hold three tournaments in the year, one of them the Bolivia Cup.

Format

The competition is a

knockout tournament A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking ...

with pairings for each round drawn at random – there are no

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, and the draw for each round is not made until after the scheduled dates for the previous round. The draw also determines which teams will play at home. There are a total of 5 rounds in the competition — six qualifying rounds, followed by two group stages, semi-finals, and the final. The competition begins in January with the extra preliminary round, followed by the preliminary round and first qualifying round, which are contested by the lowest-ranked clubs. Finally, teams from the

Liga de Fútbol Profesional Boliviano Liga or LIGA may refer to: People * Līga (name), a Latvian female given name * Luciano Ligabue, more commonly known as Ligabue or ''Liga'', Italian rock singer-songwriter Sports * Liga ACB, men's professional basketball league in Spain * Liga ...

enter at the third round, at which point there are 64 teams remaining in the competition. From 1976 to 1996 the final was played in the

Estadio Hernando Siles Estadio Hernando Siles is a multi-purpose stadium in La Paz, Bolivia. It is the country's largest stadium, with a capacity of 41,143 seats. It is named after Hernando Siles Reyes, the 31st President of Bolivia (1926–1930). The stadium is loca ...

Media coverage

The Copa Bolivia Final is one of 10 events reserved for live broadcast on Bolivia terrestrial television under the ITC Code on Sports and Other Listed Events. In October 1998 La Liga manager announced that ATB, Canal 7 and

Unitel Bolivia UNITEL (UNIVERSAL DE TELEVISIÓN) is a Bolivian commercial television network headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. It was founded in 1987. It is owned by businessman Osvaldo Monasterio Nieme. The company broadcasts sports, entertai ...

would show an additional match (For example: the Second Qualifying round, the group stage and also the final).

List of championships

Copa Bolivia

Results by team (Copa Bolivia)

References

{{National football Cups (CONMEBOL region)

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...