The Leinster Senior League will meet on Thursday evening to decide what punishment will be handed down to Ballybrack after the club falsely reported the death of one its players in order to have an away game in Arklow called off over the weekend.
The precise whereabouts of Fernando Nuno La Fuente were unknown when the story broke but it has now been confirmed that he is alive and well in Galway after moving there in September. He previously lived in Dublin and during that time lined out for Ballybrack.
With the Spaniard gone and the team apparently in need of a postponement, somebody decided the thing to do was to tell the league he was dead, the victim of a traffic accident on the way home from training last Thursday night.
"We get calls from clubs saying that somebody connected to the club has died and they need a game called off all the time and there is never any hassle about it," Leinster Senior League chairman David Moran told The Irish Times. "But things started to unravel here when we followed up on Monday to see if we could get in touch with the lad's family and see if there was anything we could do. They said the body was already back in Spain which didn't really add up.
“It’s a shocking thing to do to get a game of football called off,” he continued.
“We had a minute’s silence at all the other games and the players wore black armbands. You have to have something wrong with you to do something like that.”
After the news broke, the Ballybrack club secretary resigned by text, according to Moran, but that’s about as much direct contact as there has been since. “We’ll meet on Thursday,” said Moran, “one of the first things we’ll have to do is figure out what rules they broke. We’ve never had anything like this before.”
Moran also spoke to Newstalk Breakfast on Wednesday morning and said that the LSL will get advice from the FAI to see if there is a case to be made for reprimanding Ballybrack "for bringing the game into disrepute."
However, he said their main concern now is for the ridicule the person who made the false claim will face following the revelation of his actions.
"We are concerned about the individual and the ridicule he will face.
"We've never come across a case like this before. It is so extreme. We will be checking with the FAI about what the rule is for bringing the game into disrepute."
