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31st Oct 2016

Lyon confirm French international is alive after ‘despicable’ Twitter death hoax

'Disgraceful and inhumane acts'.

Simon Lloyd

French club Lyon have confirmed via Twitter that Mathieu Valbuena is alive after rumours appeared on social media claiming that the French international had died on Sunday.

Capped 52 times by his country, Valbuena was last seen for his club on October 24 against Guingamp. Having suffered a dislocacted shoulder in the match, he was stretchered off in tears.

Fortunately for the 32-year-old, dislocated shoulders – although very painful – don’t lead to death, and Lyon have made it clear that they are far from impressed with such rumours appearing on Twitter.

‘Mathieu Valbuena is happily alive and well despite what those despicable individuals are spreading on Twitter,” the first of two tweets from the club read.

‘Lyon are horrified at such disgraceful and inhuman acts,’ the club added.

Let that be the end of that one then.

Valbuena, who has been with Lyon since returning to France from Dynamo Moscow last year, is expected to remained sidelined by his injury for several more weeks.

The former Marseille player returned to the French squad in September having missed out on Euro 2016, and already has one World Cup Finals goal to his name after netting against Switzerland in 2014.

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