South American Championship of Champions - Participants

Participants

The aim of the organizers was to invite the champion of the most important competition of each South American country. Most notable in the competition were the host Colo Colo, the Alfredo Di Stéfano-inspired River Plate, the Atilio Garcia-inspired Nacional, and Vasco da Gama, the respective representatives of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, four countries whose clubs would go on to become the dominant powers of South American football, aggregately winning all Copa Libertadores from 1960 to 1978 and over 90% of the Copa Libertadores from 1960 to the present day.

Notes: No national club championship existed then in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia. As for Ecuador, Emelec, the Guayaquil league champion of 1946 (no league was held there in 1947) was given preference over the Quito League Champion as the Copa America 1947 matches were held all at Emelec's stadium and having Emelec's as the cornerstone of Ecuador's national team squad. As for Brazil, the champion of Rio de Janeiro state, Vasco da Gama represented Brazil. They were given preference over Palmeiras, the São Paulo state champion, since Rio won the 1946 Championship of State Teams and thus was considered the champion of the stronger league. As for Bolivia, the country was represented by the current champion of capital city La Paz. No organised club championship existed then in Colombia (that would eventually be commenced still in 1948, but later that year, in August, whereas the South American Club Championship was held in Feb-Mar 1948). Venezuela would become a party to Conmebol only in 1952, 4 years after the South American Club Championship. No reason is clear about the absence of a Paraguayan, though the 1947 Paraguayan Civil War may possibly have been the reason. Deportivo Municipal took part in place of the Peruvian champions Atlético Chalaco, who declined the invitation to participate.