UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, and its South American counterpart Conmebol have announced a match will take place on July 19 between Sevilla of Spain and Ecuador’s Independiente del Valle.
Sevilla won the second-tier UEFA Europa League pan-continental competition in 2022-23, while Independiente del Valle emerged victorious in the equivalent South American cup, the Copa Sudamericana.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The game will be called the Club Challenge and represents the latest move to expand the existing cooperation between UEFA and Conmebol. The partnership also “notably includes women’s football, futsal, and youth categories, the exchange of referees, [and] technical training schemes.”
It separately covers the Finalissima, the fixture introduced last year between the national team winners of the men’s UEFA European Championships and the Copa América.
The inaugural Club Challenge will take place at Sevilla’s Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium on July 19, with a specially-designed trophy and medals to be awarded to the winners. Tickets will be made available through Sevilla.
The last official memorandum of understanding between UEFA and Conmebol was signed in February 2020. At that point, the prospect of staging more intercontinental matches was discussed.
The winners of the top-tier club competitions from Europe and South America, the UEFA Champions League and the Conmebol Copa Libertadores, already take part in the annual Club World Cup organized by global soccer’s governing body FIFA.
