In the report that Jaime Jara – a retired colonel of the National Police – presented in 2018, while he was the president of the Investigative Commission of the Ecuadorian Football Association, it is mentioned, among other things, in relation to the country of origin of Byron Castillo, “that we are at the head of a series of irregularities, such as double identity, falsification of nationality and age.”

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Jara came to these conclusions because “consulting the Colombian registry office, they show that the citizen Castillo Segura Bayron Javier, the son of Castillo Ortiz Harrison Javier and Segura Ortiz Olga Eugenia of Colombian nationality, is registered in their computer system, as the same parents Castillo Segura player Byron David” .

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The colonel’s report, as well as the interview he made with Castillo, in which the footballer admits that he was not born in Ecuador, served as evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS), which on November 8, 2022 punished the FEF with a fine and the deduction of 3 points in the current tie, because she “deliberately decided to take the risk of representing the player (at the World Cup qualifying tournament in Qatar), despite the abundant evidence she had of the player’s true origins.”

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Opinion of the Deputy Minister

Now that Pachuca is trying to “get rid of Castillo” due to the defender’s “serious legal problems”, according to the magazine Total football, from Mexico, the player would be close to being repatriated by Barcelona SC until 2024, according to the same Aztec publication. If that were to happen, the Canaries would risk, like the FEF at one time, problems at the international level, in the Copa Libertadores, in case Castillo plays in that competition.

If Byron Castillo returns to Barcelona SC, what nationality would he be registered with for the 2024 Copa Libertadores?

At the station Sonodeportes, from Quito, Deputy Minister of Sports, Giovanny Cárdenas, referred to the defender’s legal problems. “Byron Castillo shouldn’t have a problem anywhere. The legitimacy of the data is doubted, and Byron does not. You cannot doubt the country of Ecuador. “Byron would have no problem playing for any team.”

Cárdenas was undersecretary for technical support of the Ministry of Sports when José Francisco Cevallos was in charge of that department. Through social media, lawyer Antonio Pazmiño Ycaza, a former commissioner of Emelec during Nassib Neme’s administration and a well-known constitutionalist, refuted the public official’s position.

‘How would you make that possible?’

Pazmiño Ycaza posted this: “This comment (by the deputy minister) is very light.” Castillo, most certainly, will not even be able to be transferred. How will a player be included in the Transfer Matching System (TMS) with a passport that is clearly invalid? What International Transfer Certificate (ITC) can be generated with a passport that contains a false statement? No”.

The lawyer from Guayaquil added the following: “And, in the case of Ecuador, how will they allow a player (Castillo) in the Pro League, with a clearly dubious ID?” According to CAS, “certain information in the Ecuadorian passport of the player (Castilla) was false.”

The CAS arbitration decision (an 86-page document detailing the legal rationale for punishing the Federation) mentions several aspects that raise doubts about Castillo’s citizenship.

In Tumac in 1995

For example, the four judges in the case state that “there is an email dated July 1, 2015, from the National Civil Registry of the State of Colombia to the National Civil Registry of the State of Ecuador – in the context of an exchange of electronic correspondence between those two government agencies, initiated by an Ecuadorian agency’s inquiry about real personal data of the player – confirming that Byron Javier Castillo Segura was born in Tumac, Colombia in 1995.

Internally, Castillo is an Ecuadorian citizen for all purposes. On January 28, 2021, Judge Ronald Guerrero Cruz, from the Criminal Justice Unit North 2, based in Guayaquil, declared habeas data that Castillo presented and ordered, in a letter dated February 25 of that year, addressed to the Civil Registry of Ecuador, that the soccer player be registered as an Ecuadorian citizen. (D)