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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Vincent Whelan

Shamrock Rovers fan detained in Bulgaria over alleged 'fake passport' and misses flight home

A Shamrock Rovers supporter missed his flight home after travelling to see them play Ludogorets on Tuesday evening as authorities prevented him from crossing the Bulgarian/Romanian border over an alleged 'fake passport'.

The border authorities prevented him from crossing into Romania for two hours before reportedly arresting him.

His flight home was at 5 pm on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Tough night for Shamrock Rovers as Champions League hopes suffer in Bulgaria

The Irish Mirror reached out to the Department of Foreign Affairs for comment and received the following reply: "The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of reports and is providing consular assistance. As with all cases, the Department does not comment on the details of any specific case."

Rovers themselves have also issued a strong statement calling for supporter Daniel Fulham to be allowed to return home immediately.

It read: "A Shamrock Rovers fan was held by Bulgarian border police when he was making the return journey to Bucharest with a group of other Hoops fans who had travelled to Razgard for the Champions league qualifier v Ludogorets on Tuesday night.

"Daniel Fulham is a long-standing club member and volunteer who has made many international journeys in his working and social life with the same passport as was presented to the border police.

"It is understood that the authorities questioned the validity of the photograph in matching Daniel's identity. The Department of Foreign Affairs are liaising on the matter in which there is no doubt about the validity of the passport, and we hope to see the matter closed as quickly as possible for Daniel to return home."

On the pitch, Rovers suffered a demoralising 3-0 defeat in the first leg of their second round Champions League qualifier.

Just when it looked as if they were on their way home with a daunting but not insurmountable two-goal deficit, substitute Igor Thiago’s 94th minute strike took a double deflection and flew past Alan Mannus.

It was cruel but they only had themselves to blame. From their own free-kick in the left-back position, Rovers tried to play the ball out of defence when a long ball up the pitch was the sensible option.

It resulted in Lee Grace, who took the initial free, getting the ball back under pressure, and his pass forward to Andy Lyons was cut out, allowing Kiril Despodov to cross.

Alan Mannus made a brilliant save to stop one effort, but could do nothing as Thiago’s drive came off the head of Sean Hoare and fizzed into the net.

Afterwards a livid Stephen Bradley slammed his side's naivety after all but gift-wrapping the tie to their opponents.

He said: “It's almost impossible really. It's 3-0 and they are a very good side. 2-0 is a different game and we have been there before with Slovan Bratislava.

“It would have been a different game and that is why the third goal is so disappointing. You have practically given them the tie which is really frustrating.”

Bradley continued: “The players know that in the first-half we weren’t good enough. Ludogorets were very good but we weren’t good enough.

“But we knew in the second-half that we performed a lot better. And there were so many positives from the second half to take into next week.

“So when you give away a goal in the last 40 seconds like we did, we play out when we’re not set to play, is really, really naive from a really experienced group of players.

“And the players know in the dressing room that shouldn’t happen.

“We don’t do that at home to a team in the Leinster Senior Cup, never mind to Ludogorets in the Champions League. It’s really really poor from us.”

Cypriot international Pieros Sotiriou scored twice in nine deadly first-half minutes, either side of the half hour mark.

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