He’s back from the dead.
Fernando Nuno La-Fuente, the Spanish man at the centre of the Leinster Senior League fake death controversy, appeared on RTÉ Radio 1 on Wednesday morning.
Fernando joined Sean O’Rourke on the line to discuss the circumstances of his fake death, which has been the subject of national and international coverage since it emerged on Tuesday evening.
“I was aware there was gonna be some story on me but I thought it was going to be me breaking a leg,” he told O’Rourke.
“I 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.”
Football club Ballybrack FC falsely claimed that La-Fuente had died in an attempt to have one of their games called off.
Asked if the club had consulted him, La-Fuente said: “I knew something was going on.” He said the club had warned him to ignore anything the Leinster Senior League might post about him “having an accident”.
“As soon as I heard the news I wrote to them, they wrote straight back and apologised,” he said.
“It’s serious on their part, but I find it a little bit funny, because I am not dead and no-one has actually been harmed.”
“My wife had some Facebook fuss but she already knew everything,” Fernando added.
“I had to call my mom straight away because she didn’t know anything,” he said, while laughing.
La-Fuente also confirmed that he is, in fact, not back in Spain, but had relocated to Galway from Dublin for work at the end of September.
He also said there was a very good vibe at the club, and that he enjoyed playing with them.
The club issued an apology on Tuesday evening, which read: “This grave and unacceptable mistake was completely out of character and was made by a person who has been experiencing severe personal difficulties unbeknownst to any other members of the club.”
Ballybrack also noted that “the person in question has been relieved of all footballing duties within Ballybrack FC”.
