With only about two months left before the opening of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the Ecuadorian national team could be deprived of the right to participate in the World Cup because the Ecuadorian Football Association covered up the fact that a player admitted to falsifying his birth certificate, according to the British Daily Mail.
For the 2022 World Cup, host Qatar will face Ecuador in the opener according to IC photo
The latest evidence from the Daily Mail shows that during an official investigation by the Ecuadorian Football Association, a player named Byron Castillo in the national team team admitted that he had forged his birth certificate, and he turned out to be a Colombian!
FIFA has already launched an investigation into Castillo's forgery of identity documents, and the FIFA Appeals Board will rule on Thursday.
New evidence surfaced
In this World Preliminary Round South American Qualifier, Castillo played 8 games for Ecuador. Castillo, who plays as a right-back, is valued at €2.8 million on the German transfer market website. Four years ago, Castillo admitted to being born in 1995 and that his birthplace was Colombia. Castillo's current identification, however, shows that he was born in 1998 in Ecuador.
Castillo
In April, the Chilean Football Federation filed a formal complaint with FIFA, claiming that Castillo was not qualified to play for Ecuador because he was an illegal immigrant from Colombia. Two months later, FIFA issued an announcement on its official website, determining that Castillo's qualifications were correct.
However, the Daily Mail obtained an audio recording of Castillo's interview with investigators 4 years ago, in which Castillo made it clear that he was born in 1995, not the year 1998 shown on his Ecuadorian birth certificate.
Castillo himself revealed that after he came to Ecuador, someone helped him erase everything before and helped him obtain Ecuadorian citizenship. A club that originally accepted Castillo is now caught up in the scandal of forging documents for players, forging documents for a large number of foreign players in order to obtain Ecuadorian citizenship.
After this "ironclad evidence" was exposed, there was no doubt that FIFA had a big problem.
Ecuador already knew
The recording was recorded during a conversation between Ecuadorian investigative agencies and Castillo. However, ecuador concealed this evidence. Ecuador already knew Castillo's identity four years ago, but the Ecuadorian Football Association still ruled in 2019 that he was a citizen of his country and qualified to play for the national team. However, it is worth mentioning that it is not until 2021 that Castillo played for the Ecuadorian national team for the first time, and it is clear that the country's football association wants to take the time to erase some things that are not good for them.
2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers South American Zone Round 18, Ecuador vs Argentina According to IC photo
Spain's Marca newspaper believes that the Ecuadorian team may still be disqualified from the Qatar World Cup because of the illegal use of personnel.
According to the previous Ranking of South American Qualifiers, Ecuador ranked fourth with 26 points, and joined hands with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay to reach the World Cup; Fifth-place Peru missed the World Cup after being defeated by Australia in the Asian zone on penalties in the play-offs; Colombia ranked sixth and Chile ranked seventh.
Italian "Repubblica" analysis believes that once Ecuador illegally uses players to sit down, then one of FIFA's punishment methods is to judge the entire number of games used by the Ecuadorian team using Castillo. After the corresponding changes in the standings, Chile, who finished seventh, will replace Ecuador to advance.
In the 2022 World Cup, Ecuador is in Group A with host Qatar, European giants The Netherlands and African powerhouse Senegal.
Red Star News reporter Hu Minjuan
Edited by Ou Peng
(Download Red Star News, there are prizes for the newspaper!) ）