FIFA orders Cardiff to pay Nantes £5.3million of Sala fee

Tuesday 01 October 2019

Cardiff FC will have to pay Nantes €6 million for the transfer of a footballer who died in a plane crash over the Channel Islands on his way to his new club.

The Welsh football club has been ordered to pay the first instalment of the transfer fee for Emiliano Sala, who died before he could play a single game for the Welsh club.

The Argentinian, 28, died when the light aircraft he was travelling in from France to the UK crashed into the English Channel on January 21 of this year, two days after the Bluebirds, then in the Premier League, had announced his signing from French club Nantes.

His body was found and recovered from the wreckage of the aircraft in February, while the body of his pilot - David Ibbotson - was never found. 

Floral tributes to Sala were left outside the Cardiff City Stadium (Ben Birchall/PA)

Nantes demanded that Cardiff should pay the first instalment of the overall £15million transfer fee, equating to six million euros or £5.3million, something the Welsh club contest on the grounds that Sala’s revised contract was not signed and that his playing registration was not complete.

The case ended up at FIFA’s players’ status committee, which announced on Monday that Cardiff must pay the first instalment.

The committee’s statement read: “In a meeting held on September 25, 2019, the FIFA players’ status committee established that Cardiff must pay Nantes the sum of 6,000,000 euros, corresponding to the first instalment due in accordance with the transfer agreement concluded between the parties on January 19, 2019 for the transfer of the late Emiliano Sala from Nantes to Cardiff.

A still image from video of the wreckage of the aircraft which had carried Emiliano Sala (Air Accidents Investigation Branch/Handout)

“The FIFA players’ status committee, which never lost sight of the specific and unique circumstances of this tragic situation during its deliberations on the dispute at stake, refrained from imposing procedural costs on the parties.

Cardiff released a statement in response to the judgement, seeking clarification before deciding whether to appeal.

A report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) which was published in August found that Sala had a high concentration of carbon monoxide in his bloodstream prior to the plane crash.