The Copa Simón Bolívar ( English: ''Simon Bolivar Cup'') was an international football competition organized by the Venezuelan Football Federation.Copa Simón Bolívar Files
/ref> The idea of this competition was to create a tournament among the champions clubs of the countries liberated by Simon Bolivar. It was played six times from its first edition in 1970 to the last in 1976, thus integrating the league champions clubs of

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

and

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

. Due to its format, it was a historical precedent of the

Copa Merconorte The Copa Merconorte () was an international football competition organized by CONMEBOL from 1998 to 2001 by clubs from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela and starting in 2000 clubs from the CONCACAF confederation were invited includin ...

, played between the same Bolivarian countries or the

Andean Community The Andean Community (, CAN) is a free trade area with the objective of creating a customs union comprising the South American countries (Andean states) of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The trade bloc was called the Andean Pact until 1 ...

from 1998 until the 2001 edition. It is an official tournament to be organized by a football federation member of the

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

(in this case the Venezuelan federation), in addition to which it had continuity for several years. Although the South American Football Confederation endorsed it at the time, is not included in the list of competitions organised by the entity as they are not the direct organisers of the tournament, however, the competition was very important for the time and was cited by various sports media as a relevant international title, so much so that the president of the entity at the time, Teófilo Salinas, officially delivered the cup. It was not organized by CONMEBOL or

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

, similar to the case of the old River Plate tournaments such as the Copa Aldao, which is also considered official. Other examples are in Europe where the Copa Latina, Copa Mitropa, or the Copa de Ferias were played that were not organized by

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

and were also considered official competitions at the time, although these are endorsed by FIFA. The titles list is led by six teams belonging to three federations, while the teams of the Colombian federation lead the list by winning federations with three titles, followed by the Peruvian federation with two titles and the Venezuelan federation with a single title.

History

The tournament began in 1970 on the initiative of the Venezuelan Football Federation and initially counting on the support and participation of the Colombian clubs affiliated to the Colombian Football Major Division, the governing body of the Colombian league and which even created previous qualification systems to the tournament Tolima Boys Tournament Champion
/ref> in the first three editions only included clubs from

and

, from 1975 representatives of

joined,

and

; the tournament was discontinued in 1976 for calendar and economic reasons. It is recognized as a predecessor of the

that was played by these same countries of northern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. The reasons for the disappearance of the event were written by journalist José Visconti, for the newspaper El Nacional:

History

List of champions

Performances

By club

By country

See also

References