‘The citizen is Ecuadorian, he has Ecuadorian documents, so there should be no doubt,’ says head of the Civil Registry on the Byron Castillo case

For the Civil Registry, the situation of the footballer of the Ecuadorian soccer team Byron Castillo is concluded.

Faced with a claim to FIFA by the federations of Chile and Peru for the alleged improper alignment of soccer player Byron Castillo in the Ecuadorian soccer team that qualified for the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the last instance of appeal was the TAS, an entity that sanctioned the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) with a fine of 100,000 Swiss francs for handling “a document that contained false information” in relation to the player.

In addition, a sports sanction with the subtraction of points from the Selection in the next tie.

According to Fernando Alvear, director of the Civil Registry, the entity has been working on the issue since 2018.

He said that there was a court order from an Ecuadorian body, in April 2021 – a month before he took up that position – and with a sentence they complied with the provision to register the citizen.

Ecuafútbol “does not share” decision of the TAS in the Byron Castillo case

“The citizen is Ecuadorian, he has Ecuadorian documents, so there should be no doubt because in the records of the Civil Registry -forgive the redundancy-, which is the body in charge of registering civil events in the country, he appears as a citizen Ecuadorian,” he said.

For Alvear, what was resolved by the TAS is ambiguous because they say yes, he is Ecuadorian, but we are alert; at the end of the day, they cannot say if a person is from a country or not, that is decided by the authority of each country, he affirmed.

When asked if there could be any judicial, administrative, or civil mechanism for the case to be reviewed, he replied that from what he understands judicially when there is already a sentence, that case cannot be reopened, but – he added – he does not know if there would be another way for it to be reviewed.

Alvear indicated that neither the TAS nor FIFA nor the FEF have requested information from them and he attributed it to the fact that in Ecuador there is a Data Protection Law, which means that the only person who can ask them for information about someone is the citizen himself. .

Personal information can only be given with notarized authorization.

“The TAS went too far, they messed with the sovereignty of Ecuador,” says sports lawyer

The official added that the player himself four or five months ago made a request to be given his citizen file and he did so.

“For me it is a closed chapter. There is a sentence. It is registered. It is a closed chapter, and whatever the other institutions that are not part of the Executive do, well, they have every right to do so,” he added. (YO)