Leinster Senior League meets over false claim of player’s death

FAI expected to issue statement on possible punishment for Ballybrack FC

Fernando Nuno La Fuente: Spaniard who Ballybrack FC reported ‘dead’ is alive and well and living in Galway
Fernando Nuno La Fuente: Spaniard who Ballybrack FC reported ‘dead’ is alive and well and living in Galway

The Leinster Senior League met on Thursday night to consider what punishment Ballybrack should face after the Dublin club falsely reported the death of a player to have an away fixture postponed.

David Moran, the chairman of the league, would not comment on what action it took after the meeting ended, saying the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) would issue a statement on Friday.

Speaking before the meeting, Mr Moran said he spoke to the individual who made the claim of the player’s death and said he was “distraught”.

He recognised that it was “a very sensitive issue for this person” but that the league would have to consider disciplinary action against the club for bringing the game into disrepute.

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“We want to know why they chose to go down this route and why no one flagged it earlier,” he said. “It is a very strange issue. We have never had to deal with anything like this, of this sort of scale.”

In order to postpone a game against Arklow, Ballybrack FC announced that Spanish native Fernando Nuno La Fuente, who had previously played with the club when he lived in Dublin, had died in a car accident last week.

He was in fact alive and well and living in Galway.

Mr La Fuente said he found it “funny” to see his own death reported “because, basically, I’m not dead”, he told RTÉ in an interview on Wednesday.

He said that the club had contacted him before the false claim to warn him that he might hear reports that he was involved in an accident.

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell is News Editor of The Irish Times