Copa Simón Bolívar (Venezuela)

Copa Simón Bolívar
Organising body	FVF
Founded	1970
Abolished	1976; 48 years ago
Region	Venezuela
Number of teams	11
Related competitions	Copa Merconorte
Most successful club(s)	6 teams ; (1 title each) Santa Fe (1) ; Deportivo Galicia (1) ; Millonarios (1) ; Defensor Lima (1) ; América de Cali (1) ; Alianza Lima (1) ;

The Copa Simón Bolívar (English: Simon Bolivar Cup) was an international football competition organized by the Venezuelan Football Federation.^[1]^[2] 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, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. Due to its format, it was a historical precedent of the Copa Merconorte, played between the same Bolivarian countries or the Andean Community from 1998 until the 2001 edition.

It is an official tournament to be organized by a football federation member of the CONMEBOL (in this case the Venezuelan federation), in addition to which it had continuity for several years.^[1] 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,^[3] however, the competition was very important for the time and was cited by various sports media as a relevant international title,^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9] so much so that the president of the entity at the time, Teófilo Salinas, officially delivered the cup.^[2] It was not organized by CONMEBOL or FIFA, similar to the case of the old River Plate tournaments such as the Copa Aldao, which is also considered official.^[10] Other examples are in Europe where the Copa Latina, Copa Mitropa, or the Copa de Ferias were played that were not organized by UEFA and were also considered official competitions at the time, although these are endorsed by FIFA.^[11]

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 ^[12]^[13] in the first three editions only included clubs from Colombia and Venezuela, from 1975 representatives of Peru joined, Bolivia and Ecuador; the tournament was discontinued in 1976 for calendar and economic reasons. It is recognized as a predecessor of the Copa Merconorte that was played by these same countries of northern South America.

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

Es muy difícil que la Copa Simón Bolívar sobreviva. Nadie quiere cargar con los elevados costos que supone. Además, no hay nada que obligue a los equipos participantes a enviar equipos en forma para este certamen y ello incide negativamente en la calidad del evento.
It is very difficult for the Simon Bolivar Cup to survive. Nobody wants to bear the high costs involved. In addition, there is nothing that forces the participating teams to send teams in form for this event and this has a negative impact on the quality of the event.

— José Visconti, for the newspaper El Nacional^[14]

List of champions

Ed.	Year	Champion	Runner-up	Third Place	Fourth Place
1	1970	Santa Fe (1)	Deportivo Galicia	Junior	Unión Deportiva Canarias
2	1971	Deportivo Galicia (1)	Atlético Nacional	Unión Deportiva Canarias	Deportivo Cali
3	1972	Millonarios (1)	Portugués	—
4	1974	Defensor Lima (1)	Portuguesa	El Nacional	Atlético Nacional
5	1975	América de Cali (1)	Estudiantes de Mérida	The Strongest	Liga de Quito
6	1976	Alianza Lima (1)	Guabirá	Portuguesa	América de Cali

Performances

By club

Team	Won	Runner-up	Years won	Years runner-up
Deportivo Galicia	1	1	1971	1970
Santa Fe	1	0	1970	—
Millonarios	1	0	1972	—
Defensor Lima	1	0	1974	—
América de Cali	1	0	1975	—
Alianza Lima	1	0	1976	—
Atlético Nacional	0	1	—	1971
Deportivo Portugués	0	1	—	1972
Portuguesa	0	1	—	1974
Estudiantes de Mérida	0	1	—	1975
Guabirá	0	1	—	1976

By country

Country	Won	Runners-Up	Winning Clubs	Runners-Up
Colombia	3	1	América de Cali (1); Millonarios (1); Santa Fe (1)	Atlético Nacional (1)
Peru	2	0	Alianza Lima (1); Defensor Lima (1)	—
Venezuela	1	4	Deportivo Galicia (1)	Deportivo Galicia (1), Deportivo Portugués (1), Estudiantes de Mérida (1), Portuguesa (1)
Bolivia	0	1	—	Guabirá (1)
Ecuador	0	0	—	—

References

^ ^a ^b Copa Simón Bolívar Files
^ ^a ^b "Cup for Defensor" (in Spanish). El Tiempo. 1975-01-21.
^ "The official competitions of CONMEBOL". conmebol.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2015-08-19.
^ "Meet Colombian Champions in Tournaments in the Americas" (in Spanish). Gol Caracol. Retrieved 2014-12-01.
^ "A day like today Alianza Lima won its only international title" (in Spanish). La República. Archived from the original on 2019-08-22. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
^ "Table of official titles of Colombian teams" (in Spanish). Pulzo. 2019-12-07.
^ "Millonarios, champion and super champion!" (in Spanish). El Espectador. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
^ "America de Cali celebrates '84 springs and four winters'" (in Spanish). Win Sports. Archived from the original on 2019-11-07. Retrieved 2015-02-13.
^ "Millonarios and the Simón Bolívar Cup 1972" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2015-08-23.
^ "Conmebol released the official titles and backtracked with the inclusion of the Aldao Cup" (in Spanish). Conmebol. Retrieved 2015-08-19.
^ "The local force of Atletico worries Porto" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
^ Quindio the Greatest Boy
^ Tolima Boys Tournament Champion
^ Eliézer Pérez Copa Simón Bolívar 1976 (2/2)

[Files-1] Copa Simón Bolívar Files

[Tiempo-2] "Cup for Defensor" (in Spanish). El Tiempo. 1975-01-21.

[3] "The official competitions of CONMEBOL". conmebol.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2015-08-19.

[Simón-4] "Meet Colombian Champions in Tournaments in the Americas" (in Spanish). Gol Caracol. Retrieved 2014-12-01.

[República-5] "A day like today Alianza Lima won its only international title" (in Spanish). La República. Archived from the original on 2019-08-22. Retrieved 2018-12-08.

[Pulzo-6] "Table of official titles of Colombian teams" (in Spanish). Pulzo. 2019-12-07.

[Supercampeón-7] "Millonarios, champion and super champion!" (in Spanish). El Espectador. Retrieved 2018-02-07.

[Win-8] "America de Cali celebrates '84 springs and four winters'" (in Spanish). Win Sports. Archived from the original on 2019-11-07. Retrieved 2015-02-13.

[9] "Millonarios and the Simón Bolívar Cup 1972" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2015-09-26. Retrieved 2015-08-23.

[10] "Conmebol released the official titles and backtracked with the inclusion of the Aldao Cup" (in Spanish). Conmebol. Retrieved 2015-08-19.

[11] "The local force of Atletico worries Porto" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2009-01-13.

[12] Quindio the Greatest Boy

[13] Tolima Boys Tournament Champion

[14] Eliézer Pérez Copa Simón Bolívar 1976 (2/2)

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v t e Non-CONMEBOL South American official competitions
AFA / AUF	Tie Cup (1900–19) Copa de Honor Cousenier (1905–20) Copa Aldao (1913–55) Copa Escobar-Gerona (1941–46)
AAmF / FUF	Copa Campeonato Río de la Plata (1923)
FVF	Copa Simón Bolívar (1970–76)