Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Soccer Player Responds to Team Faking His Death
“That’s how I found out that I was dead.”
A soccer team in Ireland’s third tier finds itself in hot water after it was caught faking the death of one of its players in order to get a match postponed, and now the supposedly dead player has spoken out about the hoax.
Ballybrack FC, a Dublin-based team in the Leinster Senior League, told the league Friday that Fernando LaFuente had died in a car crash on his way home from practice the night before. The club asked that its game Saturday against Arklow be postponed, and the request was granted. Other teams in the league posted messages of condolence on social media. They also wore black armbands and observed moments of silence before their matches this weekend.
But LaFuente is not dead, he had just flown to spend the weekend in his native Spain. He did an interview on RTE Radio 1 on Wednesday to explain the whole thing.
“I was yesterday at home, after my work finished, playing some video games,” LaFuente told host Sean O’Rourke, as transcribed by Balls.ie. “I got a call from work and I was like, ‘Oh, what’s happened?’
“They told me, ‘You’re a celebrity’ and I was like, ‘Why is that?’ They started sending me all these news articles.
“That’s how I found out that I was dead.”
LaFuente knew something was up when he was removed from his team’s group chat on WhatsApp. He said he was told that there would be some news coming out about him but he thought it would be more along the lines of a broken leg, not a fatal car crash.
LaFuente isn’t holding a grudge against the club though.
“It’s serious on their part but I’m finding it a little bit funny because, basically, I’m not dead and no one has actually been harmed,” he said.
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