Cardiff City denounces “negligence”, FC Nantes “judicial relentlessness”. The Nantes commercial court must render its decision on Monday on the financial dispute between the two clubs, seven years after the death of Emiliano Sala in a plane accident.
The Argentine player, 28, died in a plane crash over the English Channel in January 2019 while joining Cardiff City, where he had just been transferred from FC Nantes. He didn’t have time to play with his new club.
Cardiff City Football Club (CCFC) took action before the Nantes Commercial Court in 2023 to claim compensation for loss of income and other damages suffered by the club due to the death of the player.
The Nantes commercial court, after hearing the pleadings of the two clubs at the beginning of December, should render its decision at the beginning of the afternoon.
Cardiff City defends that FC Nantes was, via agent Willie McKay, involved in the organization of the private flight on which the footballer took a seat and that if the transfer was effective at the time of the accident according to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), it is the organization of this flight which is in question.
Willie McKay “could not ignore the illegality of the theft”, Cardiff City lawyer Olivier Loizon told the court.
According to him, Willie McKay showed “levity” and “negligence”. “Whatever the final cause of the accident, (Emiliano Sala) should not have been on the flight,” he argued.
For their part, FC Nantes’ lawyers recalled that only David Henderson, organizer of the theft, had been convicted by the courts in the United Kingdom for having hired a pilot he knew was unqualified and transporting a passenger without valid authorization.
Several procedures
Furthermore, the agent mandated by FC Nantes as part of the transfer of Emiliano Sala was Mark McKay, son of Willie McKay, underlined Me Jérôme Marsaudon. Willie McKay “was only helping his son, given his great experience”, for the FC Nantes lawyer.
“Nothing in this file” justifies, according to him, “that the responsibility of FC Nantes is engaged”.
The councils of the Nantes club denounced at the hearing the “judicial relentlessness” of Cardiff City and accused it of having “instrumentalized” the death of Emiliano Sala.
After an analysis carried out by an expert commissioned by Cardiff City, the Welsh club estimated its damage at more than 120 million euros. The financial expert heard by the commercial court explained that he had taken into account in particular in his calculation method the transition of Cardiff from the Premier League to the 2nd division of the English championship (Championship).
FC Nantes lawyers brushed off “phantasmagorical” figures in court.
They are demanding one million euros from Cardiff City for moral damages.
In another procedure linked to the dispute between the two clubs, the CAS estimated in 2022 that the transfer of the player had been finalized at the time of his death.
In 2023, the football court of the International Federation (Fifa) ordered Cardiff to pay FC Nantes the balance of the transfer of the Argentine player, at the time a little more than 11 million euros out of a total of 17 million.
