The tragic phone call came in Friday morning. That's when Ballybrack FC, an amateur Dublin soccer team, told league officials that one of its players
The tragic phone call came in Friday morning.
That’s when Ballybrack FC, an amateur Dublin soccer team, told league officials that one of its players had been killed in a traffic accident on his way home from practice. Fernando LaFuente, sadly, had played his last game.
The reaction was swift. Ballybrack’s opponents that Saturday agreed to call off their scheduled game out of respect for LaFuente, and teams across the Leinster Senior Football League observed somber moments of silence before they resumed play.
There was just one minor issue: Fernando LaFuente is very much alive.
“After my work finished I was playing some video games, and suddenly I got a call from work,” LaFuente told RTÉ Radio One on Wednesday. His coworkers called Tuesday night to check in on him. They’d seen reports about his “accident.”
“They started sending me all these news articles and all these mass media,” he explained. “And that’s how I found out I was dead.”
As it turns out, Ballybrack officials had faked his death.
A Spanish national, LaFuente said he had played on the team since January.
