Cardiff City’s long-running legal battle over the death of Emiliano Sala has ended with a French court dismissing the club’s compensation claim and ordering them to pay damages and legal costs.
The ruling brings to an end years of legal disputes following the tragic plane crash that killed the Argentine striker in 2019, a case that has involved multiple courts, governing bodies and appeals.
Cardiff had been seeking more than €120 million in compensation from French club Nantes, arguing that the Ligue 1 side should be held responsible for issues surrounding the flight that ultimately ended in tragedy. However, the French commercial court ruled that Nantes were not responsible for the flight and rejected Cardiff’s claims entirely.
Court Rejects Cardiff Claim
The court ruled that Nantes were not at fault in relation to the flight and also rejected Cardiff’s claim that the Welsh club had suffered reputational damage. The judges went further, stating that Cardiff’s claims had already been examined in previous legal rulings and had consistently been rejected.
As part of the ruling, Cardiff were ordered to pay €300,000 in damages, along with a further €180,000 to cover legal costs, bringing another costly chapter to a case that has run for more than seven years.
The dispute has been ongoing since Sala’s transfer from Nantes to Cardiff in January 2019. The striker had signed for a club-record fee as Cardiff attempted to avoid relegation from the Premier League, but he died when the plane he was travelling in crashed into the sea near Guernsey. The pilot, David Ibbotson, also died in the crash.
Long Legal Battle Comes To An End
Following the tragedy, Cardiff initially disputed whether the transfer had been fully completed, but FIFA ruled that the transfer documentation had been processed correctly and that Cardiff were therefore required to pay the transfer fee. Subsequent appeals through the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Switzerland’s supreme court also went against the Welsh club.
Cardiff’s latest legal argument centred on the involvement of agent Willie McKay, who had helped arrange travel logistics around the transfer. Cardiff argued that he was acting on behalf of Nantes and that the French club should therefore be held accountable for what happened. However, the court concluded that while McKay had acted as an agent connected to Nantes, he did not organise the flight and was not aware that the flight arrangements were illegal.
The businessman who organised the flight had previously been found guilty of endangering the safety of an aircraft, after it was revealed that the pilot did not hold the correct commercial licence and was not qualified to fly at night, while his certification for the aircraft had also expired.
This latest ruling effectively brings the legal dispute to a close and represents another major setback for Cardiff, who have now lost multiple legal battles relating to the transfer and the tragedy that followed. The case has cast a long shadow over the club for several years, and this decision finally closes one of the most complex and tragic legal cases football has seen in recent times.