BOX SCORE | Zürich (May 11, 2022) FIFA has released a statement regarding the Chilean Football Association’s complaint regarding its request for FIFA to investigate Ecuador’s possible use of an ineligible player used in the World Cup qualifiers.
The Chilean Football Association believe that right-back Byron Castillo was born in Colombia in 1995 and not in Ecuador in 1998.
FIFA’s statement reads as follows:
In view of the above, FIFA has decided to initiate disciplinary proceedings regarding the potential ineligibility of Byron David Castillo Segura with respect to the aforementioned matches. In this context, the FEF and the Peruvian Football Federation have been invited to submit their positions to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee.
Further details will follow in due course.
Castillo has played in eight CONMEBOL World Cup qualifiers for Ecuador in their successful run to qualify for Qatar later this year.
The original complaint said:
“We inform that on May 4, through the Carlezzo Abogados studio, we sent to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee a complaint against the player Byron David Castillo Segura and the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF), due to the use of a false birth certificate, false declaration of age and false nationality by said player.
“We understand, based on all the information and documents collected, that the facts are too serious and must be thoroughly investigated by FIFA.
“There is countless evidence that the player was born in Colombia, in the city of Tumaco, on July 25, 1995, and not on November 10, 1998, in the Ecuadorian city of General Villamil Playas.
“Investigations in Ecuador, including a legal report by the National Directorate of Civil Status, the highest authority in the matter in that country, declared the existence of inconsistencies in the birth certificate presented by the player, and reported that this document did not exist in their internal records, pointing to other weaknesses in the document, to conclude that it may have been fraudulent.
“In addition, a commission of inquiry from the Ecuadorian Football Federation, aimed at clarifying the irregularities existing in the files of the players before this federation, concluded that the player was Colombian.
“All of this, of course, was perfectly known to the FEF. The world of football cannot turn a blind eye to so many tests. The practice of serious and conscious irregularities in the registration of players cannot be accepted, especially when talking about a global competition. . There must be fair play on and off the pitch.”