Not all Chileans are comfortable with the idea that they will win in court and be allowed to go to the World Cup. After all, the team’s performance was too poor in the recent 0:2 loss to South Korea. The game made headlines mainly because South Korea’s captain saved two Chilean players from fighting on the pitch. On the other hand, the question of Chile’s ex-post qualification is only marginally about sport anyway.

Rather, it’s about a case from South America that has been causing a stir for months, revolving around real and fake papers. After Chile clearly failed to qualify for Qatar in the continental qualifiers, Chile’s federation ANFP reported World Cup participant Ecuador to Fifa for alleged illegal lineups. Right-back Byron Castillo, 23, active with SC Barcelona Guayaquil, was ineligible to play, according to the Chileans’ account: He was not Ecuadorian, but in fact Colombian – just like his parents, who fled the civil war in their home country years ago.

Castillo’s youth club has been in the spotlight more often for identity falsification

The documents compiled by Chile’s federation and sent to Fifa do indeed suggest that Castillo was not born in a place called Playas, as claimed by Ecuador, but as Bayron Castillo in the Colombian city of Tumaco; this includes an extract from the Tumaco birth register. And there is more circumstantial evidence: in his early teens, Castillo joined CS Norteamérica from Guayaquil, a club that has been the subject of more frequent rumors of identity falsification. And see: It wasn’t until after he joined the club that documents surfaced identifying him as a native Ecuadorian. Were they forged?

What is certain is that there have always been doubts about the authenticity of his papers. In 2015, an already negotiated loan deal with Emelec fell through; the Ecuadorian top club was not comfortable with Castillo’s credentials. In 2017, Castillo once flew out of the lineup of Ecuador’s U20 team. And in the newspaper El Comercio features an article stating that a commission of inquiry by Ecuador’s federation FEF concluded in January 2019 that Castillo was Colombian. A curious turn of events followed just over two years later, in the wake of a spike in Castillo’s form: In September 2021, an Ecuadorian court declared Castillo’s data, which had previously been fraught with doubt, valid. He was then called up to the senior squad – and played in eight World Cup qualifiers.

The unspoken accusation of the Chileans is that Castillo’s deployment was based on a judicial scandal. At the instigation of the Ecuadorian federation, Castillo had been given a nationality that he did not have. Meanwhile, the Chileans have even found a church baptismal certificate that dates Castillo’s birth to 1995. His use in international matches is therefore based on criminal machinations and is also illegal according to Fifa rules.

Incriminating allegations: Castillo suffers nervous breakdown during a match

The Ecuadorians, on the other hand, insist that they can still decide for themselves who is Ecuadorian and who is not. Castillo himself is far from unaffected. In May, he caused a penalty kick in a league match – and suffered a nervous breakdown: “Change me, I can’t take it anymore,” he shouted desperately and in tears to his coach at SC Barcelona. “I’m worried about the damage being done to Byron and to us,” Ecuador’s Argentina coach Gustavo Alfaro said now, stressing, “We won the right to play in the World Cup on the pitch.”

How Fifa will decide is an open question, and it is considered likely that the case will also end up before the International Court of Sport Cas. Chile, who would play the World Cup opener against hosts Qatar if they are re-nominated, are hoping to follow a precedent from women’s soccer: in 2019, the national team of Equatorial Guinea was barred from the World Cup for fielding players with fake identity documents in qualifying.

Italy was also in the conversation as a potential successor

Should Fifa decide in this spirit and exclude Ecuador, the question would remain as to who would move up. Immediately after the affair began, rumors even brought Italy into play as a replacement team. After all, the European champions, who bitterly failed to qualify for the World Cup, are currently the highest-ranked team in the Fifa rankings. And Italy is an association with financially strong advertising and media partners. Even in debates about a possible exclusion of Iran – because of the ban on women entering soccer stadiums – Italy was recently brought into play as a Qatar successor. Italy’s federation chief Gabriele Gravina, though, insists they won’t take the place of the South American federation. But the story kept popping up in Italy, partly because it got excellent clicks on the Internet.

As an option, the only thing that would probably remain is that a South American team would move up. Chile demands that all of Ecuador’s games in which Castillo participated be counted as lost 0-3. That would reconfigure the standings: Chile would jump from seventh to fourth, while Peru would remain ahead of Colombia in fifth place for next Tuesday’s intercontinental playoff against Australia. But low-level penalties are also conceivable, for example a player’s suspension or a fine. Or will everything turn out differently? Will the proceedings even be dropped?

The Chilean federation’s lawyer, a Brazilian named Eduardo Carlezzo, expressed his confidence in victory: “It would be scandalous if Fifa did not consider all this evidence,” he said. However, his confidence in the world governing body seems limited: “If we consider the situation, that is, that the World Cup groups have already been drawn, the organization of the World Cup has long since started and tickets and travel packages have long since been sold, then the easiest solution will be to leave everything as it is,” Carlezzo suspects. The Ecuadorians, at any rate, are sure that it will be the same: “It’s all a circus,” said their association vice president Carlos Manzur.