Ecuador is expected to be banned from the Qatar 2022 World Cup on Friday by FIFA for forging a player's passport, but Chile is more likely than Italy to replace him at the event, Football Italia reported on Thursday.
FIFA will make a decision on Friday on this controversy and Ecuador's position is very difficult to justify. Ecuador is accused of falsifying the birth certificate and therefore the passport of player Byron Castillo to make it look like he was born in Ecuador. After a complaint from Chile, it was discovered that Castillo was actually born in Colombia and is not entitled to Ecuadorian citizenship. In theory, Italy would be promoted to the World Cup as the highest eliminated team in the FIFA world rankings. However, it is more likely that FIFA will record the qualifying matches in which Castillo played as losses for Ecuador rather than ban them from the World Cup altogether. This would therefore push Chile into the tournament instead of Ecuador, thus maintaining the balance of South American representatives. Castillo has nine caps for Ecuador, playing in eight qualifying matches for this year's World Cup. Ecuador has been drawn in Group A with Qatar, the Netherlands and Senegal.
