Ecuador will participate in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar after FIFA rejected an ineligibility claim made against one of the country’s players, Byron Castillo.
This follows appeals from the football associations of Chile and Peru.
But FIFA’s appeals committee has now said that Castillo qualifies to represent Ecuador.
“This is a dark day for football and for the credibility of the system,” Jorge Yunge, the general secretary of the Football Federation of Chile (FFC), said.
Castillo featured in eight 2022 World Cup qualifying matches for Ecuador but the FFC claimed the 23-year-old used a false birth certificate.
An official FIFA statement on Friday read: “On the basis of the documents presented, the player was to be considered as holding permanent Ecuadorian nationality.”
It added that “the present decision remains subject to an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport”.
FFC’s lawyer, Eduardo Carlezzo, has revealed they will appeal FIFA’s decision.
Carlezzo said: “I have never seen in my entire life as a lawyer an injustice like this one.
“There are a huge number of documents that, alone, prove without any reasonable doubt that the player was born in Colombia.”
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