Chapecoense Awarded Copa Sudamericana After Air Crash Tragedy

Paraguay's Olimpia football club pays tribute to Chapecoense.
Paraguay's Olimpia football club pays tribute to Chapecoense in Defensores del Chaco, Asuncion, December 4. The Brazilian club lost most of its first-team squad in a plane crash last week. Norberto Duarte/AFP/Getty

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Chapecoense will be awarded the Copa Sudamericana it was scheduled to compete for, following last week's plane crash in which the majority of its first-team players were killed.

The Brazilian team was en route to Medellin in Colombia to play Atletico Nacional in the first leg of South America's second-tier club competition when its flight crashed outside the city. Just six of the 77 people on board survived, including three players.

CONMEBOL, the South American Football Confederation, confirmed the decision to award Chapecoense the trophy in a statement on its website, adding that the impetus had come from a letter written to it by Atletico Nacional expressing its desire that Chapecoense be crowned champion.

Brazil's top-flight football clubs have offered to loan Chapecoense players free of charge, and to make it exempt from relegation. The club had been likened to Leicester City, the English Premier League champion, for its achievements relative to its size.