Ballybrack FC apologise after reporting a player's death
Amateur Irish club Ballybrack FC has apologised after falsely reporting the death of player Fernando Nuno La-Fuente to the Leinster Senior League.
The Leinster Senior League have confirmed that Ballybrack FC player Fernando Nuno La Fuente is not dead. A rep for the club informed the LSL he had died in a car accident last week. La Fuente is alive & well, story about his death was an apparent effort to get a game postponed pic.twitter.com/bEGnfs8bE8
— Darren Cleary (@RadioCleary) November 27, 2018
The side were set to play Arklow Town before their game was postponed after the league were notified La-Fuente had died in a traffic accident.
A death notice had been placed in an Irish newspaper by the league before they were informed that La-Fuente was alive in his native Spain.
Teams across the league had conducted a minute silence prior to their games, after being notified by the league of the death.
A statement released by Ballybrack FC said: "It has come to the attention of both the club, senior players and the management team that a gross error of judgement has occurred emanating from correspondence sent from a member of the senior set-up management team to the Leinster Senior League.
"An emergency meeting was held and the person in question has been relieved of all footballing duties, within Ballybrack FC, its senior team and roles within the club itself.
"The club has contacted Fernando to confirm his whereabouts, wellbeing and are thankful for his acceptance of our 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.
"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 in recent days."
Leinster Senior League chairman, David Moran told Ireland's RTE: "The Leinster Senior League rang yesterday morning. We wanted to show our sympathies and go to the Mass and maybe meet the family and see what we could do to help in this horrible situation.
"And we were told he was flown back to Spain on the Saturday. Straight away, that rang alarm bells for us. How would you die early on Friday morning and be flown back to Spain on the Saturday?
"We checked the hospitals, we checked everywhere. Nobody could find anything about this young fella. Obviously, some of his team-mates released stuff on social media saying he went back to Spain four weeks ago."
Understandably upset at the situation the league also released a statement in relation to the incident.
"We are glad to hear that the player is in good health and has returned to his native Spain," the statement said.
"The Leinster Senior League will co-operate with all relevant agencies in the investigation of this matter and the league will also deal with this issue through their own internal disciplinary procedures.
"The Leinster Senior League would like to offer their sincerest apologies for any distress caused as a result of notifying clubs as to the demise of a valued player.
"The league acted in absolute good faith with the information supplied by the club and only had the welfare and interest of those affected by the reported ‘tragedy’ as our uppermost concern at all times."
