The soccer player of the Ecuadorian team Byron Castillo affirmed this Wednesday that the doubts about his origin and Ecuadorian documentation have been coming for years and not now. He guaranteed that this has also been “very solved” for a long time in Ecuador.
Castillo, 23, told Telemundo that this situation caused him a hard moment in his career and that in the international arena “they will think that it is from now, but the problem has been going on for years and that is very solved in Ecuador.”
The Mexican Lion player thus referred to the complaint filed with FIFA by the National Professional Football Association (ANFP) of Chile, which accuses Ecuador of an alleged improper alignment irregularity that could compromise its participation in the World Cup in Qatar.
With this procedure, Chile maintains the hope of eventually keeping the Tricolor quota.
After several years of doubts that pointed out that Castillo was born in the Colombian city of Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, a judge ordered in 2021 that the soccer player be registered as Ecuadorian and validated the certificate as born in General Villamil.
The clarification documented from the Civil Registry of Ecuador specifying the player’s Ecuadorian nationality, after a habeas data appeal requested by a judge in the city of Guayaquil, gave way for the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) to consult the FIFA to summon Castillo.
Once confirmed in the FEF the endorsement and the right from FIFA to be summoned to the national team, the coaching staff headed by the Argentine Gustavo Alfaro summoned Castillo.
The soccer player also played with Ecuador the U-17 World Cup that was held in 2015 in Chile.
«Everyone attacked me, they wrote to me, they said things to me and well I said: ‘wow! What’s up?’ There came a time when he wanted to stop going because he felt so much pressure. I came to the stadiums and they told me thousands of things, but there were many people who supported me at that time, like my family,” Castillo recalled.
«They told me to continue, not to pay attention to what people said. Most of it was in networks and in the stadiums that told me things. That’s why there was a moment when I exploded and said: ‘I can’t’, “continued the right winger.
Byron Castillo and the FEF were summoned to Switzerland to testify before FIFA this Thursday, to give their version of the events, but his lawyer, Andrés Holguín, has confirmed that his representative will not be at the hearing in Zurich.
EFE
