An investigation by the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF) is trying to determine the nationality of defender Byron Castell, who plays for Barcelona in Guayaquil, and who is suspected to be of Colombian origin.
According to the investigation carried out by the director of the Ecuadorian Football Federation (FEF), Jaume Jara, the indications are that Castillo has acted as an Ecuadorian with false documents and claims to have the evidence that the 20-year-old footballer was born in Colombian locality of Tumaco, border with Ecuador.
The director clarified the new details in an interview with the radio station Mach Esports, in the Ecuadorian capital. Jara claimed that he has submitted all the documentation to the FEF Disciplinary Commission to punish the player for acting with altered or false documents.
The director has insisted that Castell is Colombian because he has civil registration documents from Colombia in the town of Tumaco. So it will be the Disciplinary Commission that will determine a possible sanction to the player, who according to the manager has the legitimate right to defend himself.
Castell has become one of the important figures in Barcelona, with which he won last year’s title and has started as a starter this season. Investigations into Castell’s nationality have been going on for years, however, the FEF enabled him in 2019 as an Ecuadorian, although he also warned that he could reopen the investigation if necessary.
For his part, the player businessman Marc Zambrano assured a local station in 2018, that Castell had so far been investigated on six occasions and that the Ecuadorian Civil Registry (state identification agency) went validate your information twice. Zambrano had also said that the governmental Council for Citizen Participation, had to send letters apologizing at that time.
Meanwhile, the president of Barcelona, the Ecuadorian naturalized Argentine, Carlos Alejandro Alfaro Moreno, told local journalists last Wednesday that his player was qualified as an Ecuadorian by the FEF after the investigation process in the year 2017, when he was transferred from the auques of Quito.