Ballycrack FC told the Leinster Senior League Fernando Nuno La-Fuente had died, when instead he had simply moved.<\/b>
\nAn Irish soccer club has been forced to apologize after mistakenly reporting one of their players as dead.
Ballybrack F. C., an amateur side based in Dublin, reported that Fernando Nuno La-Fuente had died in a motorcycle accident.
The team informed the Leinster Senior League, which agreed to postpone their game against Arklow Town on Saturday, while a minute\u2019s silence was observed across the other matches in the same division.
The Leinster Senior League, however, has launched an investigation after it emerged on Tuesday that La-Fuente was indeed alive and well.
\u00ab\u00a0It has come to the attention of both 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,\u00a0\u00bb Ballybrack said in a statement on Tuesday.
\u00ab\u00a0An 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.\u201d
To cloud the waters even further, it was initially reported La-Fuente was back in his native Spain, before he instead explained he had simply moved from Dublin to Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, for work in September.
\u00ab\u00a0I was aware there was gonna be some story on me but I thought it was going to be me breaking a leg,\u00a0\u00bb he said during an appearance on Irish broadcaster RT\u00c9 Radio on Wednesday.
\u00ab\u00a0I was yesterday, home, after my work finished, I was playing some video games and suddenly I got a call from work and they said ‘You’re a celebrity.’ That’s how I found out that I was dead.\u00a0\u00bb
When asked if the club had consulted him, La-Fuente revealed he had got wind something was afoot when the club warned him to ignore any reports emanating from the Leinster Senior League about an incident involving him.
\u00ab\u00a0I have a really good relationship with them [Ballybrack F. C.],\u201d he said.
\u201cAs soon as I heard the news, I wrote to them. They got straight back to me and told me what was going on and they apologized.
\u00ab\u00a0I had to call my mum straight away and she basically didn’t know anything. She saw this morning my photo on all the newspapers. I haven’t spoken with her yet because she didn’t answer any of the messages I sent.\u00a0\u00bb
La-Fuente dismissed the suggestion news of his death was engineered because his former team were \u201cafraid\u201d of playing Arklow, but suggested they might have struggled to recruit the players they needed.
\u00ab\u00a0I think they had a rough time getting players,\u00a0\u00bb he said.
\u00ab\u00a0They don’t play football professionally. Most of them have regular jobs and some of them work in the U. K. I think that was the issue. It was nothing major.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n