Shaken a South American team may be kicked out of the 2022 World Cup

Ecuador could be kicked out of the World Cup to be replaced by Chile due to a player accused of forging documents.

Ecuador has won tickets World Cup 2022 with direct tickets for 4 teams in South America, but now the whole country is anxious about the possibility that FIFA will take away their participation in the tournament. The reason is because of the suspicious things surrounding the papers of player Byron Castillo.

Byron Castillo is suspected of forging documents to play for Ecuador

Since May, doubts surrounding Castillo’s papers have been raised by the international press because the Chilean Football Federation asked to investigate him. They claim that Castillo is in fact Colombian but faked his birth certificate and personal identification, and Castillo’s identity papers in Ecuador do not have fingerprint authentication (although in fact, no one in Ecuador has been fingerprints when making identification documents).

Lawyers representing the Chilean football federation said they had gathered evidence to prove that Castillo was from Tumaco, a city in Colombia close to the border with Ecuador, which included a certificate of baptism from the church in Tumaco and a Public Health register. Meanwhile, Castillo’s documents in Ecuador say he was born in the city of Playas and was born on October 11, 1998. The Chilean side alleges that the Civil Registry of Ecuador helped falsify documents for the Ecuadorian Football Federation to let Castillo play.

The controversy over Castillo’s nationality has been around since 2017 when he was temporarily removed from the Ecuador U20 team and then was not called up to the national team. Castillo was finally called up to the squad in 2021 after an investigation confirmed he had legitimate Ecuadorian citizenship, but now Chile has asked FIFA to review the incident based on the evidence it has gathered.

Chile will be going World Cup if Ecuador is disenfranchised

Chile is the party that benefits the most from this incident because although they finished 7th in South America, if Castillo is found to have falsified documents, then based on the results of the matches, the results will be changed and Ecuador will lose, Chile will be the team that will be promoted to the group that won tickets to the final round in Qatar while Peru still has to play playoffs.

It is expected that FIFA will announce the final decision on this matter on June 10. This can be a rather rare event in World Cup history when a winning team loses its spot because of a paperwork problem for only one player.