Spanish footballer dies aged 18 after body found between two train carriages as club pay tribute to tragic star
A PROMISING young footballer who went missing four days ago has been found dead near the Spanish train station where he was last seen.
Spanish third-tier side Cordoba FC confirmed the body found on Monday was that of 18-year-old Alvaro Prieto.
A Spanish TV crew doing a live report on the missing man filmed the horror moment part of his body, with the white trainers and beige trousers he was wearing when he vanished, could be seen trapped between two carriages on a moving train coming into Seville’s main railway station.
Spanish state broadcaster TVE subsequently made a grovelling apology for screening the images instead of interrupting the live signal after it emerged it was Prieto’s body.
The teenager vanished on Thursday morning after being asked to leave a train he was trying to catch so he could return to his home city of Cordoba.
The engineering student, leading goalscorer this season for Cordoba FC’s youth team, had been out partying with friends in Seville and missed the 7.20am train he was due to return home on and had already paid for.
Security guards asked him to leave the area around 9.30am on Thursday after catching him trying to cross the tracks and get on another train he didn’t have a ticket for.
He was thought to have abandoned Santa Justa Station – without cash and with no battery on his mobile phone to show he had bought the earlier ticket he was no longer able to use to pay for a new one.
His anguished mum Julia Lopez said in a radio interview over the weekend she feared the teenager had been run over or abducted after trying to hitch-hike home.
The two carriages on the train his body was wedged between in the ugly scenes filmed by Spanish state broadcaster TVE are believed to have been brought out of sidings this morning shortly before his body was spotted.
A police investigation into the tragedy is now underway.
Cordoba FC said in a message on Twitter: “Cordoba FC regrets to inform you that our youth player Alvaro Prieto has finally been found dead.”
The club had been regularly updating its social media since Thursday saying in a first message: “Youth team player Alvaro Prieto has disappeared this morning in Seville.
“The last time he was seen was at 9.30am at Santa Justa Station.
“He was wearing beige trousers and a green shirt.
“If you know where he is contact the police or his family.”
Cordoba’s manager Ivan Ania said in a subsequent press conference: “Alvaro, we are waiting for you with our arms open.”
Prieto was seen as one of Cordoba’s most promising youth team players after netting three times this season.
The 5ft 9in teenager was described as a natural in front of goal.
One well-placed team source said shortly after the search began: “He’s a responsible person and when we saw he wasn’t responding to messages we began to do everything we could.”
A family friend told a Spanish radio station before today’s grim discovery: “He’s an 18-year-old boy with his head screwed on and he and his friends went for a normal night out.”
Alberto Catalan, reporter for a programme on RTE’s La 1 channel called Mananeros, said in the live report where Prieto’s trapped body was filmed: “We’ve just seen how between two train carriages, excuse me for a second.
“The train was reversing and we have seen something suspicious, we have seen some trainers poking out between the carriages and a beige pair of trousers.
“We have tried to corroborate the information and ask his friends if he was wearing white trainers.
“You’re going to see it for yourselves now, there between the two carriages, how there are some white trainers with beige trousers, there right now between the two carriages.”
The programme’s presenter Jaime Cantizanos later offered an apology, saying: “We’ve shown some images that should never have been broadcast. We’ve very sorry. This apology is directed in the first place to Alvaro’s family.”