Ireland: A club simulates the death of a player to postpone a match

Claiming to be devastated by the Friday morning death of one of his players in a motorcycle accident, the amateur club of Ballybrack in Dublin has asked to postpone his match last weekend. Application accepted by the league in similar circumstances, which even organizes a minute of silence on all the fields where the other games are played.

A moment immortalized by the club Liffey Wanderers who posted on Facebook a photo of the tribute before his match, accompanied by a message expressing his "sincere compbadion" with the team of the deceased.

In support, the league of Leinster goes so far as to publish Monday a message of condolence in an Irish newspaper … except that Fernando Nuno La Fuente, the player of Ballybrack supposed to be dead, is alive and well.

"It's really extreme to do that to postpone a game. We reacted in good faith, "commented the president of the amateur league Leinster, David Moran, with the Irish TV channel RTE. The latter understood that something was wrong by calling the club Monday morning.

Fernando Nuno La Fuente: "It's funny, I was able to attend my own death"

"Immediately, it made a difference," says Moran. "How can you be repatriated on Saturday in Spain by being dead on Friday morning?" In the face of the hoax, the Ballybrack club pleads the "error of judgment" individual of its now ex-secretary. But the harm is done and the criticism is insistent on social networks.

"This serious and unacceptable mistake is completely against our will and was committed by a person who is going through personal difficulties, without the knowledge of the rest of the club," defends the amateur team of South Dublin in a mea culpa on Facebook.

La Fuente, who has actually moved to the west of the island, seems to have better received the news of his death: "For my part, it's funny because I was able to attend my own death", s he amused, questioned by RTE.

He learned it Tuesday while playing a video game after his day's work: "I was told: + You're a star +," he says. And the shot seems premeditated, La Fuente explains that Ballybrack contacted him last week to inform him that he could hear about him.

Without him imagining that it would go so far: "I thought it would be for breaking my leg or something."