Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IT’S FOOL TIME
Teams observe minute’s silence after football club fakes player’s death
In response to recent events and the information which is currently in circulation across social and mainstream media. It has come to the attention of the club, senior players and the management team that a gross error of judgment has occurred emanating from correspondence sent from a member of the senior set up management team to the Leinster Senior League.
As of this evening an emergency A FOOTBALL club scored a spectacular own goal after claiming a player had been killed in a car crash – all to avoid playing a game.
Ballybrack FC in Dublin is being investigated by the Leinster Senior League over the “fake death” of Spaniard Fernando Nuno La-fuente.
Bosses were told his body had been flown home following the “crash” after training last Thursday, but after checking it out, it was discovered he is alive and well in Spain.
Mr La-fuente is said to have returned home about a month ago.
The league has now opened an investigation into the club’s activities after “acting in good faith” and postponing Ballybrack’s game against Arklow Town last Saturday.
A number of other clubs posted tributes on social media with Liffey Wanderers and Templeogue United organising a minute’s silence.
League chairman David Moran told the Daily Mirror last night: “As far as we know we had a phone call Friday morning to say the young lad was in an accident and died in hospital, and they wanted their match off.
“Obviously our rules are quite clear, the other team have to be informed and make arrangements. I stepped in and said ‘Look lads this is serious stuff ’.
“The game was called off. We issued a meeting was held and the person in question has been relieved of all footballing duties within Ballybrack FC, its senior team and roles in the club.
The club has contacted Fernando to confirm his whereabouts, wellbeing and are thankful for his acceptance of our statement saying we were sorry to hear about it, offered our sympathies to the family.” But the story of Fernando’s death began to unravel as Mr Moran and the league tried to pay their respects.
He added: “On Monday I asked our lads to get in contact with Ballybrack to find out when the service was, or if people were flying here or home.
“We felt we needed to act, maybe the lad might need a bit of help, and we’d go to the service.
“We were told he was brought home on Saturday.
“Straight away that rang a bell for me, I said, ‘Hang on, you don’t die in hospital on a Friday and go back to Spain on a Saturday’.
“We started to look into it, and it all unravelled.
“Did we do wrong? We issued a statement to sympathise with the family. I don’t think we did because that was the information we were given.”
A screenshot of messages on Whatsapp apology on this matter. This grave and unacceptable mistake was completely out of character and was made by a person who has been experiencing severe personal difficulties unbeknownst to any other members of the club. The club will continue to began circulating suggesting the whole story was a hoax. The club removed a statement of remembrance on its Facebook page they had posted for him.
Then the Leinster Senior League announced an investigation into the affair once it became clear to Mr Moran that Mr Fuente was alive and well.
“We can’t contact anybody from Ballybrack at the moment.
“All we know is the young lad is back in Spain the last four or five weeks.
“I’m delighted that the young lad is alive, and he’s going to have a happy life.
“We have contacts for him, but imagine me ringing him up. How would that conversation go? ‘Hi, this is David Moran from the Leinster Senior League, we heard you died last week’.
“It’s unfortunate for Ballybrack, it’s unfortunate for the people of Ballybrack.
“We’ll get to the end of our investigations and then from a football point of view and then we’ll take it from there at a committee level.
“Nobody has any record of anybody being killed in Ballybrack.
“That’s the sad part – or the great part whichever way you look at it.”
LEINSTER SENIOR LEAGUE CHAIRMAN
provide a duty of care to all parties and offer the support that may be needed.
This person had previously contributed greatly to the senior team within the club in recent years and to the wider footballing community across Dublin for decades. At this stage we can only offer our sincere apologies to the Leinster Senior League, our opponents Arklow Town FC and the host of clubs and football people who made contact with us or offered messages of support.
The past few years has seen good progress made in regards to renewal of senior football in the Ballybrack area.
We are all taken aback by this event and hope to try work with all relevant organisations and agencies to learn from this mistake.