Whoa: Ecuador Is Reportedly 'Set To Be Kicked Out' Of The World Cup All Because Of A Fake Birth Certificate

[Source] - Ecuador are reportedly set to be expelled from this year's World Cup over claims their defender Byron Castillo falsified his birth documents and is actually Colombian - which means he would have been ineligible for their qualifying campaign.

Chile claimed they had proof that Castillo was born in Tumaco, Colombia in 1995, and not in the Ecuadorean city of General Villamil Playas in 1998 as stated on his official documents. It claimed the Barcelona of Guayaquil full back used a false passport and birth certificate. 

A new report from Mundo Deportivo claims FIFA has already made its decision to kick Ecuador out after concluding its probe into the allegations and an announcement will be made in the next few days.

Oh well, this is a real* thing now. I blogged about the probe back in May when it was first announced: 

And now it sounds like FIFA is going through with it. This is major news. We're talking about the World Cup. This isn't a qualifier. This isn't a friendly. This is the biggest stage in the world. This is the biggest event for the sport and arguably in the world. And now we have a country about to get kicked out of the entire thing. 

Not only that but there are questions as to who will take their place: 

The report also claims there is a faint hope from Italy that they might be able to take advantage of Ecuador's potential expulsion and be included in the World Cup despite being dumped out by North Macedonia in the play-offs. 

That might be possible if FIFA award Ecuador's place to the team with the best position in their World Rankings instead

That would be a wild twist considering everyone assumed it would be Chile getting into the World Cup in place of Ecuador. That's who was 'punished' by Ecuador reportedly using an ineligible player. Obviously if Italy gets in it will lead to even more arguments. They had a chance to qualify. They blew it … again. So weird that a top-6 ranked team in the world can't qualify, but that's the game. It would make sense to use deduction of points from Ecuador and everything with CONMEBOL to send a new team in. 

This isn't even the first time someone from South America used an ineligible player. In 2018 Bolivia was forced to forfeit two games for using a player from Paraguay. How this keeps happening is weird, but this is for sure the first time I can think of this in the World Cup phase. Like I said, this is major news in sports and apparently tomorrow will be the announcement. 

I keep saying it but everything about this World Cup is a bizarre disaster. That's what FIFA gets for playing this in Qatar and in the winter. We should be getting ready for the World Cup now.