Sports in Paraguay

What sports are played in Paraguay?

The countable source is the Comité Olímpico Paraguayo's own list of member federations. It publishes no total, and it will not count the same way twice: successive readings of the same page returned lists of different length, and a numbered enumeration of it repeated both cestoball and fencing, so no number is given here.^[6] The range it names runs from basketball, cycling, rowing, fencing, football and fútbol de salón through handball, judo, karate-do, golf, rugby, squash, tennis, archery, shooting, table tennis, triathlon, sailing and volleyball to athletics, chess and badminton, with bochas, cestoball, angling and motoring also listed.^[6]

The statutory frame is wider than the Olympic one. Article 1 of Ley N° 2874 Del Deporte defines sport as “aquella forma de actividad física que utiliza la motricidad humana como medio de desarrollo integral de las personas, la integración social, la recreación, la competición y el espectáculo”.^[2] Article 10 makes the registration of sporting organisations a duty of the state body rather than of the Olympic committee, so the two lists are not the same list.^[2]

On results the range narrows sharply. Olympedia's medals-by-sport table for Paraguay carries one sport, football.^[1] Outside the Olympic programme, the Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol states that it runs, besides its two professional divisions, Primera División B, Primera División C, futsal, beach football and women's football.^[7]

What is the most popular spectator sport in Paraguay?

No audited season attendance series for the top division could be retrieved for this page, so three separate measured proxies are given, each with its date.

The first is carriage. On 4 October 2023 the Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol agreed a four-year audiovisual rights contract with Tigo running to 2027; its president, Robert Harrison, put the figure at “USD 97.680.000” including tax, and ABC Color reported the same amount the following day.^[9] Revista PLUS reported that the contract covers the first division, the División Intermedia, the Copa Paraguay, women's football, Primera B, Primera C, futsal and beach football.^[10]

The second is the gate, and the best retrievable figure is a club total rather than a league one. Diario HOY reported on 3 December 2018, at the end of that year's calendar season, that a crowd of 8,625 at Para Uno took Olimpia's completed-season total to 515,331 spectators, past the 512,001 it gave for Cerro Porteño in 2017; that is a single secondary source and it is a season total, not a running count.^[11]

The third is a single measured crowd. CONMEBOL put the attendance at the 2024 Copa Sudamericana final, played at the ueno La Nueva Olla in Asunción on 23 November 2024, at “unos 45.000 espectadores”.^[12]

A second sport has a claim of its own. The Transchaco Rally, run since 1971, reached its fiftieth edition on 24–26 October 2025 with 103 crews entered; ABC Color calls it “la máxima prueba del deporte motor de nuestro país”, which is the paper's characterisation, and no audited spectator figure for it could be retrieved.^[28]

How is sport organised in Paraguay?

The constitutional hook is Article 84 of the 1992 constitution, as amended through 2011, under which the state “shall promote sports, especially those of a non-professional character, that stimulate physical education, providing economic support and tax exemptions”, and encourages national participation in international competition.^[4]

The governing statute. The text read for this page is the transcription of Ley N° 2874 Del Deporte published by Base Legal, which heads the law “LEY N° 2874/05” and records sanction by the Cámara de Diputados on 6 October 2005 and by the Cámara de Senadores on 23 March 2006; vLex publishes the same law as “Ley n° 2.874/06”.^[2][3] Its Article 8 reads: “Créase la Secretaría Nacional de Deportes (SND), dependiente del Poder Ejecutivo — Presidencia de la República”, and gives the body the purpose of implementing the law, proposing a national sports policy, allocating resources to sporting activity and supervising sporting entities throughout the national territory.^[2] Article 14 lists the secretariat's resources, which include a 1% levy on international transfers of athletes and a 1% canon on the television rights of sporting events, and a share of the sports lottery, which Article 18 directs into the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo del Deporte; the law runs to Article 83.^[2]

What that fund is worth in a budget year is published, but not as a secretariat line. The Executive's Proyecto de Ley de Presupuesto General de la Nación 2026, published by the Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas, carries a revenue item “COPARTICIPACIÓN PARA EL FONDO NAC.DE DEPORTES (LEY 5538/15)” of G. 69,303,451,428; no expense allocation under the secretariat's own name could be located in that document.^[31]

Paraguay's National Olympic Committee is the Comité Olímpico Paraguayo, whose own page states that it was founded on 11 August 1970 at the Estadio Comuneros; Olympedia gives the same date and the country code PAR.^[5][1] Articles 34 and 35 of the sports law place the committee under the law, its own statutes and applicable international provisions, and make it the owner of the national Olympic emblems.^[2]

Spending by the two bodies is under legislative scrutiny. ABC Color reported that on 12 May 2026 the Senate approved requests for information addressed to the Secretaría Nacional de Deportes and to Senatur about money spent on the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, with a fifteen-day constitutional deadline to reply; no finding has been made and no sanction imposed.^[30]

One further body has its seat in the country: CONMEBOL gives its address as “Autopista Aeropuerto Internacional — Km12 Luque — Gran Asunción — Paraguay” in its own competition regulations, and as Avda. Sudamericana y Valois Rivarola, Luque, on its museum page.^[13][14]

What are the main domestic leagues and competitions?

The Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol states that it was founded on 18 June 1906, joined the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol in 1921 and FIFA in 1925, and is seated at calle Medallistas Olímpicos N.° 1 in Luque.^[7]

The top division's own competition regulations for 2025, published under the sponsored name Copa de Primera Tigo Ueno Bank, set the format: twelve clubs in each official championship, two championships a year played home and away, twenty-two match days in each and forty-four in the year. Two clubs go down to the División Intermedia on the lower points average across both championships, and the principal Copa Libertadores place and the places in the Copa Sudamericana are allocated from the accumulated forty-four-match table.^[8] The same document dates the 2025 Apertura from 24 January to 2 June and the Clausura from 4 July to 2 December.^[8]

Below and beside it the association runs the División Intermedia, Primera División B, Primera División C, futsal, beach football and women's football, and its audiovisual contract covers the Copa Paraguay as well.^[7][10]

The main motorsport competition is organised outside that structure. The Transchaco Rally is run by the Touring y Automóvil Club Paraguayo, which acts as the national sporting authority, and its fiftieth edition was held in the Chaco on 24–26 October 2025 and won by Gustavo Saba and José Luis Díaz.^[28][29]

How has Paraguay performed at the Olympic Games?

The figures here are Olympedia's and Olympedia's only, read from the raw tables under the code PAR.

Olympedia's narrative states: “Paraguay has competed at every Olympic Games since their début in 1968, with the exception of the 1980 Moskva Olympics. Paraguay has won one medal at the Olympic Games. In 2004, their football (soccer) team was defeated by Argentina in the final, earning a silver medal.”^[1] The tables carry no total row of their own. The medals-by-Games table has a single row, the 2004 Summer Games, 0 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze; the medals-by-sport table has a single row, football, 0 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze. Summed twice, both come to one silver medal and nothing else, which is what the narrative says.^[1]

Olympedia records no Winter Games medals and one Winter Games competitor: the freestyle skier Julia Marino, seventeenth in the women's slopestyle in 2014.^[1] No Youth Olympic Games rows appear in either medal table, those being typed separately.^[1]

Which athletes and teams are internationally recognised?

The Olympic result is the 2004 men's football final, which Olympedia records as a defeat by Argentina and Paraguay's silver medal.^[1]

In senior international football the two completed titles are the Copa América of 1953 and 1979. The competition's official site states that “Paraguay has won the CONMEBOL Copa América™ on two occasions”, that the side “lifted the trophy in 1953 and 1979”, that the 1953 title was secured by beating Brazil in the decisive match of a tournament played in Peru, and that the 1979 title came against Chile in a final of a tournament played without a fixed host nation.^[16]

In fútbol de salón the claim is the federation's own. The Comité Olímpico Paraguayo reported the national side's 6-1 win over Uruguay in the world final played in Mexico on 5 December 2023 and stated that “la selección paraguaya logró su cuarto título a nivel mundial”.^[21] In the same code, the Asociación Mundial de Futsal recorded that Paraguay beat Colombia 3-2 after extra time on 13 September 2026 to take the second AMF C15 world championship, played at Carmen del Paraná and Coronel Bogado in Itapúa; the AMF records that the first edition, in 2016, was won by Brazil.^[22]

In motorsport, Gustavo Saba and José Luis Díaz won the fiftieth Transchaco Rally in October 2025, and Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais the first World Rally Championship round held in Paraguay, in August 2025.^[29]

What major international competitions has Paraguay hosted?

Asunción staged the second edition of the Junior Pan American Games from 9 to 23 August 2025. Panam Sports, which awards them, gives 41 countries, 28 sports, 42 disciplines and more than 4,000 athletes; a preview published by the Association of National Olympic Committees on 10 September 2024 had given 4,206 athletes, 41 countries, 28 sports and 43 disciplines, and the two counts of disciplines differ.^[18][19]

The country hosted the Copa América in 1999, which Brazil won; CONMEBOL's own historical gallery captions the win “Brasil campeón de América en la Copa Paraguay 99”, and the competition's official site carries the same result under the headline “Brazil wins back-to-back championship in Paraguay 1999”.^[15][17]

Asunción also staged the final of the 2024 Copa Sudamericana on 23 November 2024, at the ueno La Nueva Olla, where CONMEBOL recorded Racing Club's 3-1 win over Cruzeiro before about 45,000 spectators.^[12]

In motorsport, the country held a round of the World Rally Championship for the first time in August 2025, based in Itapúa; ABC Color reported that at its gala in Tashkent the FIA distinguished Paraguay, over other countries with a WRC history, “por su excelencia organizativa, impacto deportivo, innovación, seguridad y la experiencia proporcionada al público asistente”, among fourteen hosts.^[29]

The Comité Olímpico Paraguayo announced in June 2025 that Asunción had been chosen to host the Juegos Escolares Sudamericanos of December 2025, an event it put at more than 1,500 athletes from twelve countries.^[23][24]

What are Paraguay's main sporting rivalries?

The named fixture is the superclásico between Olimpia and Cerro Porteño, and the two published records of it do not agree.

The Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol's own historial, published with a Clausura meeting at the ueno La Nueva Olla and covering matches from 1913, gives 328 local-tournament meetings: 113 Olimpia wins, 113 Cerro Porteño wins and 102 draws, with goals 419-411.^[26] ABC Color, reporting on 3 May 2025 after an Olimpia win, gave 327 league meetings — 113 Olimpia, 112 Cerro Porteño, 102 draws — and an all-time figure of 456 meetings since 1913, 165 to Olimpia, 155 to Cerro Porteño and 136 drawn, crediting no source for the count.^[25] VS Sports, publishing on 13 March 2022, had given 313 local meetings with Cerro Porteño ahead on wins, 111 to 107, and Olimpia ahead on goals, 398 to 394.^[27] The three counts are current to different dates and are reported here as published, without adjudication.

Internationally, Paraguay met Chile in the 1979 Copa América final and Argentina in the 2004 Olympic football final, and in fútbol de salón beat Uruguay 6-1 in the 2023 world final reported by its own Olympic committee.^[16][1][21]

What is the role of school and university sport?

The constitutional duty is framed around education: Article 84 commits the state to promoting sport, “especially those of a non-professional character, that stimulate physical education”, with economic support and tax exemptions.^[4] Article 10 of Ley N° 2874 puts the design, jointly with the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura and the Universidad Nacional, of plans and programmes for the educational system from preschool to higher level among the duties of the Secretaría Nacional de Deportes.^[2]

The national school competition is the Juegos Escolares y Estudiantiles Nacionales, organised by the secretariat; ABC Color reported on 16 September 2026 that competition was under way in Asunción at the secretariat's own facilities and at the COP Arena.^[32] The committee described the Juegos Escolares Sudamericanos it took to Asunción with the secretariat as intended to “reforzar la educación a través del deporte”.^[23][24]

University sport runs through the Asociación Nacional Deportiva Universitaria del Paraguay, which FISU lists as its member association for Paraguay, a member since 1981 and re-affiliated in 2005, at Medallistas Olímpicos N.° 1 in the Parque Olímpico.^[20]

Were any sports invented in Paraguay?

No source retrieved for this page attributes the invention of a sport to Paraguay, and the sports law does not declare a national sport. Ley N° 2874 Del Deporte was read in full in the Base Legal transcription: it defines sport in Article 1, creates the state body in Article 8 and runs to Article 83 without declaring any sport the national one.^[2] The national statute register at the Biblioteca y Archivo Central del Congreso returned a 403 response and could not be retrieved, so no wider statement about the statute book is made here.

What Paraguay has created is a competition rather than a sport. The Transchaco Rally was first run in 1971, and ABC Color calls it “una de las carreras más longevas del continente y del mundo”.^[28][29]

The code in which the Comité Olímpico Paraguayo claims world titles for the country was codified elsewhere. Fútbol de salón is governed internationally by the Asociación Mundial de Futsal, whose world championships Paraguay has entered and hosted — the 2026 C15 edition was played in Itapúa — and the Comité Olímpico Paraguayo lists a separate national federation for it alongside the football association.^[22][6]