Court dismisses Cardiff's $138M claim against Nantes over Sala's death
NANTES, France (AP) — A commercial court in France dismissed Welsh club Cardiff’s claims for compensation in the death of soccer player Emiliano Sala in a ruling issued Monday, more than seven years after the plane crash that killed the Argentine forward.
In a long-running legal dispute, Cardiff was seeking more than 120 million euros ($138 million) from the player’s former team Nantes following a series of previous legal setbacks for the Welsh club.
Rulings by FIFA, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland’s supreme court have gone against Cardiff in its legal dispute with Nantes since Sala died in January 2019.
The 28-year-old Sala was signed by Cardiff from Nantes for a club-record fee of 17 million euros as it tried to stave off relegation from the lucrative Premier League. But the single-engine Piper Malibu aircraft the Argentine player was traveling in from France to begin his career with Cardiff crashed into the sea near the Channel Island of Guernsey. The pilot, David Ibbotson, also died.
The court ruled that Nantes was not at fault in relation to the flight and that Cardiff did not suffer reputational damages. It added that Cardiff’s “extravagant claims” had already been ruled on by other courts and that Nantes suffered moral damage. It ordered Cardiff to pay 300,000 euros in damages, plus an additional 180,000 euros for legal costs.
After the crash, Cardiff disputed that the transfer deal with Nantes had been finalized. FIFA ruled it had received the required international registration forms.
The businessman who organized the flight was found guilty of endangering the safety of an aircraft in 2021. David Henderson, the aircraft operator who arranged the flight, had asked Ibbotson to fly the plane as he was away on holiday. Ibbotson, who regularly flew for Henderson, did not hold a commercial pilot’s license or a qualification to fly at night, and his rating to fly the Piper Malibu had expired.
Ahead of the hearing at Nantes’ commercial court last year, Cardiff said it wanted Nantes to be held accountable for “the faults committed” by Willie McKay, a football agent who had helped arrange the flight. Cardiff argued that he acted on behalf of Nantes, with the French club denying any wrongdoing.
The court found that McKay served as an agent for Nantes, but that he did not organize the flight and was not aware of the illegality of the flight.
Cardiff was relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2018-19 season and currently competes in the third tier of the English football league system.
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