Eduardo Carlezza held a press conference on Thursday, a day before the expected favorable outcome of the lawsuit by his client, the Chilean Association, against Ecuador, regarding the points from the two matches in which, according to his arguments, the player Byron Castillo was irregularly aligned.
The expert clearly stated his objective: "we are requesting the irregularity in the use of the player Byron Castillo by the Ecuadorian Federation, which would lead to the application of Article 22, stating that the defendant team would be the loser and the claimant would be declared the winner by 3-0."
This means that the lawsuit does not seek to rearrange the positions of the teams in the final table of the Conmebol Qualifiers, which would have given Colombia a distant hope of a playoff, but rather demands 6 points for Chile, which would place them in fifth position and grant Peru direct qualification. In fact, when asked specifically if Colombia had any chance of fighting for a spot in Qatar, the lawyer said, "We do not work as intermediaries involving other federations, it is solely about winning or losing the case in the terms of Chile." One would have to step off that train...
According to Carlezza, his investigations leave no doubt that the player in question was born in Colombia: "we have conducted a thorough investigation, we have all the documentation of his family in Tumaco and Ecuadorian documentation that disqualifies his birth certificate. The Ecuadorian federation has not presented any meritorious document, they only rely on a judicial decision that states that the player is Ecuadorian, but nothing has been decided that way. If the decision is based solely on technical evidence, it should rule in favor of Chile," he asserted.
"The only document they have in favor of the player is a habeas data that clearly is not valid, we have a very extensive investigation. I ask: if someone was not born in Ecuador, why not reveal where they were born, where they studied? It would be very easy to disclose everything in that case, and we wouldn't be here, but it doesn't exist and we know he was born in Tumaco," added the defender of the Chilean cause.
What about the match on Monday for the playoff between Peru and Australia? "We are working on the scenario that the dates will be changed if necessary, depending on tomorrow's ruling, we could appeal to the appellate court and then to the TAS, which can make a very quick and reasonable decision before the start of the World Cup."