Possible Change in Qatar’s group in the World Cup
There has been speculation during the last period about who will replace the Ecuadorean national team if it is officially excluded from the 2022 World Cup, against the background of a complaint submitted by the Chilean Federation about forged documents of Ecuadorean national team player Byron Castillo, during the two teams’ match in the South American qualifiers for the World Cup finals.
Last Wednesday, FIFA opened an investigation into the complaint, and the Ecuadorean Football Association was invited to present its position before the FIFA Disciplinary Committee.
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While Franco Chimenti, a former member of the Italian Olympic Committee, said that he believed that Italy's chances were renewed in reaching the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, according to its progress in the FIFA international classification, Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Association, confirmed that Italy's participation in the 2022 World Cup was impossible.
"There is a possibility that Italy will secure its place in the World Cup more than expected," said "Chimenti" - in statements carried by the newspaper "La Repubblica"... "It seems that Ecuador has included a player who is not entitled to participate, and they may pay dearly for this."
He continued, "If Ecuador is proven wrong, then there is a rule in FIFA that talks about the participation of the best ranked team, which is Italy." And he concluded: "Now, this is in our favor, these are the rules of the game, and we believe in that."
But Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Federation, said - in statements to Football Italia: "The chance of us participating in the World Cup? Zero, Europe has 13 seats in the tournament and they have all been filled."
And the president of the Italian Federation added: “If there is a place that will become available in the quota of South American teams, that seat will go to a team from South America,” and Gravina continued, “We spoke with the International Federation (FIFA), and the response was completely negative.”
It is noteworthy that the Italian national team failed to qualify for the Qatar World Cup 2022, after its shocking loss (1-0) at home to North Macedonia
Despite the absolute control of Italy over the course of things in the match, which took place in the Italian city of Palermo, the players of the blue team (the European champions) failed to translate the opportunities that arose for them into goals.
The goal of the match for Macedonia came through Alexander Trajkovsky, in the second minute of the added time of the second half.
Who will replace Ecuador then?
Experts say that if Ecuador is found guilty, it will likely lose points won from matches in which the offending player Castillo took part, so the match points between Chile and Ecuador, will be awarded to Chile to move up the standings and replace Ecuador in the World Cup according to Football Italia.
It is worth noting that the first group of the 2022 World Cup includes Qatar, Senegal, the Netherlands, and Ecuador