With just over two months to go before the 2022 World Cup starts, there is a possibility that one of the 32 qualified national teams will be excluded from the event in Qatar. This is Ecuador after new evidence was uncovered that its soccer player Byron Castillo would have used a false birth certificate.
The British tabloid Daily Mail published on Monday a leaked audio in which it is supposedly a conversation between Castillo and investigators from the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) who were analyzing his case as early as 2018. In the recording, the athlete "clearly states that he was born in 1995, not in 1998, as it says on his Ecuadorian birth certificate," narrates the British newspaper.
The 23-year-old side of the Mexican Lion cites his full name as Bayron Javier Castillo Segura, which corresponds to his Colombian birth certificate, not the Ecuadorian one, in which he is identified as Byron David Castillo Segura. He also "describes in detail how he left the Colombian city of Tumaco for San Lorenzo, Ecuador, to try to carve out a career in soccer" and "names Ecuadorian businessmen who got him a new identity," he adds.
At the same time, the newspaper publishes a letter detailing the conclusions reached by the federation after those investigations. The letter assures that Castillo is a Colombian citizen born in Tumaco in 1995 and adds that there is recorded evidence of the player's "confession".
Despite this, the FEF officially determined in 2019 that Castillo is an Ecuadorian citizen, adds the Daily Mail, which ensures that Castillo "admitted to using a false passport and the Ecuadorian federation hid it." The newspaper details that the "extraordinary revelation" comes before the FIFA Appeals Committee makes a decision this week on the matter, which may affect the participation of the Ecuadorian team in Qatar.
The player came out hours later to defend himself through his lawyer- Andrés Holguín assured that the audio that Chile has used in its eagerness to eliminate Ecuador from the World Cup in Qatar has no effect, since he said that it is a piece that has already been discarded in the process.
"The audio that is circulating is nothing new. In addition, a constitutional judge did not consider it as evidence since it could not be certified that it was from Castillo," Holguín said Monday when being interviewed by a Quito radio station.
Castillo's lawyer added that "in the FIFA process this audio cannot be presented as evidence, since it was not presented in the first instance nor in the appeal, this does not affect anything," he insisted.
For Holguín, the leak is a desperate act by Chile and the legal body of its Football Federation. "This audio changes nothing. That country wants to enter the World Cup through the back door," the lawyer said ironically.
The first resolution of FIFA before the complaint filed by the National Association of Professional Football of Chile (ANFP) agreed with Ecuador and its classification as the fourth best team in the South American qualifiers, although it later filed an appeal that will be defined next Thursday. . The FEF has announced that it has been summoned to the hearing convened by FIFA and that the player was also summoned, due to the claim of the ANFP, which Peru has joined, that in the play-off phase he was eliminated by Australia, while Chile It was in seventh place below Colombia.
Precisely Ecuador plans to play the opening match against the host Qatar on November 20.
