Cardiff City have announced that they will put forward a shocking £80 million legal action against Nantes over the transfer of late Emiliano Sala.
The English Championship side has been taking detailed legal counsel for many months on this subject matter.
This move is coming more than four years after the tragic death of the Argentinian striker in a plane crash in January 2019.
Following Cardiff City’s inability to get their wish with the governing body of football (FIFA), the Sport of Arbitration and the Swiss Federal Tribunal, the Welsh club will in the coming week submit their legal papers in the French courts.
A statement from Cardiff City on Tuesday reads: “The Swiss Federal Tribunal has decided the Court of Arbitration for Sport does not have jurisdiction to deal with Cardiff City’s claim for damages against FC Nantes.
“This is not a surprise and the club has already prepared separate legal action against them which will be started straight away.”
The Bluebirds maintained that “FC Nantes must be held responsible for the accident” which they reportedly said was “organized by their agent”.
The name of the Nantes agent is Willie McKay and he was the one who reportedly arranged the ill-fated flight with a pilot who did not have a commercial license, did not have the right papers to fly at night, and who was a part time Disk Jockey and plumber!
The Championship side further said, the legal action will be to “recover what the club paid for Emiliano and additional damages for further consequential losses”.
Cardiff City were forced to part with the entire £15m transfer fee, in spite of claims that Emiliano Sala was not rightly registered as a Cardiff player.
However, the actual compensation claim will be the cost of relegation from the Premier League £100m less than the £20m parachute fees.
FIFA slammed a three-window transfer ban when Cardiff City refused to pay the initial installment of the £15m transfer fee.
The club who are currently one place above relegation to the League 1 were unsuccessful in their appeal to CAS in January and agreed to pay £7m to allow the ban to be removed.
As thing stands presently, Cardiff City’s legal team will formally proceed with a big compensation claim on the premise that Sala’s death was due to negligence.
The Welsh side’s legal documents might even refer to the tragic death as a case of “manslaughter”.
The Carlos Tevez situation at West Ham United is a precedent Cardiff City believe strengthens their £80m “relegation” compensation claim.
Premier League bound Sheffield United won £26m compensation 15 years ago, the amount they claimed for relegation.
Cardiff City feel their case is backed strongly by the tape recording where pilot David Ibbotson revealed the plane was in such a “dodgy” state.
In that tape, he could also be heard saying that he feared for his life in the journey from Nantes back to Wales.
David Ibbotson was so freighted that he said he wanted to wear a life jacket as he didn’t know why a loud and scary bang had happened on the first flight.
Ibbotson had been hired by pilot David Henderson, who served a jail sentence for his role in the scandal.
David Henderson had in turn received instruction from Willie McKay, whose son Mark, had the order for the transfer from Nantes.
Cardiff City were relegated from the Premier League by just a point, and they argue that a new striker would have saved them from falling to the Championship.
The cost of relegation was above £100-million less payments for a parcahute of £20-million.
Due to the timing of the bad occurrence, Cardiff City couldn’t acquire another striker as the transfer window was shut.
Emiliano Sala was an high profile signing for Cardiff City and he came in for a club record fee of £15 million.
However, he wasn’t able to strut his stuff for Cardiff City due to the unfortunate incident, he scored 42 goals in 120 games for Nantes.
Overall, Emiliano Sala scored 88 goals in 225 matches during his football career which ended on a bad note.
