Cardiff City are reportedly demanding that Nantes pay them £104million in compensation for the death of Emiliano Sala in a plane crash in 2019.
In the latest episode of the long-running legal battle between the two clubs over the Argentine striker’s tragic death, L’Equipe reports that Cardiff are seeking damages for the relegation from the Premier League they suffered at the hands of the following. Cardiff had agreed a £15 million deal to sign Sala from the French club, but the Piper Malibu plane carrying Sala to Wales crashed off the coast of Alderney in the Channel Islands.
L’Equipe says Cardiff want to present the £104million bill to the Nantes Commercial Court, with the figure based on data analysis which indicates the club had a 54.2% chance of avoiding relegation with Sala.
Cardiff demands a fortune from Nantes
The club used the services of Analytics FC, which calculated the number of goals and points the club could have won if Sala had played with them during the second half of the season. Maurice Nussenbaum, a French legal and financial expert brought into the case by Cardiff, estimates the financial loss to be around £104 million.
Nantes has filed a counterclaim, which L’Equipe describes as “moral damage”, and demands that Cardiff be fined. Neil Warnock’s Cardiff were relegated in 2019 after finishing in penultimate place in the Premier League, two points from safety.
A sprawling affair
Although it is unclear whether Sala’s goals would have kept Cardiff going, he averaged a goal every three games for Nantes and was expected to perform well in the Premier League. . Cardiff initially argued to FIFA that Sala was not registered as their player at the time of the plane crash and was therefore not responsible for the £15m transfer fee sterling. However, FIFA deemed the transfer to have been completed and imposed a transfer embargo on the Bluebirds for non-payment.
This embargo was only lifted in January, after owner Vincent Tan paid the full sum to Nantes last July, with Cardiff having failed in their attempts to have FIFA’s decision overturned by the Court of Arbitration Sport. The Welsh club now hope to recoup their losses – or even more – by pursuing the case through the French legal system.
