An investigation by the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) is trying to establish the nationality of defender Byron Castillo, who plays in Barcelona in Guayaquil and is suspected of Colombian origin.
According to the investigation conducted by the director of the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF), Jaime Jara, the indications suggest that Castillo acted as an Ecuadorian with false documents and claim that he has evidence that the 20-year-old footballer was born in the Colombian city of Tumaco, on the border with Ecuador. .
The manager specified the new details in an interview given to the radio station Mach Deportes, from the capital of Ecuador. Jara assured that he submitted all the documentation of the FEF Disciplinary Commission to punish the player for the action with modified or false documents.
The manager insisted that Castillo is Colombian because he has documents from the Colombian civil registry in the city of Tumaco. Therefore, the Disciplinary Commission will establish a possible sanction for the player, who, according to the manager, has the legitimate right to defend himself.
Castillo became one of the important figures of Barcelona, with whom he won the title last year and started as a starter this season. Investigations into Castillo’s nationality have been going on for several years, however, the FEF authorized him in 2019 as an Ecuadorian, although he also warned that he could reopen the investigation if necessary.
For his part, player entrepreneur Marco Zambrano assured a local station in 2018 that Castillo had been searched six times so far and that the Ecuadorian civil registry (the state identification agency) had validated his information twice. Zambrano also said that the government’s Citizen Participation Council had to send letters of apology at the time.
Meanwhile, Barcelona’s president, Ecuadorian Argentine naturalist Carlos Alejandro Alfaro Moreno, told local journalists last Wednesday that his player was licensed as an Ecuadorian by the FEF after the 2017 investigation process, when he was transferred from Aucas to Quito.