What if Emiliano Sala could have saved Cardiff? The English football club is demanding more than 120 million euros from FC Nantes. It is based on an analysis: the Argentine player who died in 2019 could have helped the Welsh to stay in the equivalent of Ligue 1, in the United Kingdom.
More than 120 million euros: this is the sum claimed by the English football club Cardiff City, from FC Nantes. An amount which would correspond to the damage linked to the death of player Emiliano Sala. The Argentine died in a plane crash during a flight between Cardiff (United Kingdom) and Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), to greet his teammates one last time before his transfer.
The analysis was filed on Monday April 22 at the Nantes commercial court. FC Nantes has until September 23 to respond to the conclusions of Cardiff (United Kingdom), according to the British club’s lawyer. “We will take the time to study these new voluminous documents and these figures.“, reacted to AFP the lawyers of FC Nantes, Messrs Jérôme Marsaudon and Louis-Marie Absil, evoking “almost phantasmagorical hypotheses“and a reasoning”very far-fetched“.
We take stock of this matter.
First act: the Welsh seize the commercial court of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), to request compensation. Cardiff City claims several damages, including loss of income, linked to the death of Emiliano Sala. A previous estimate put these losses at 100 million euros, particularly at the financial and reputational level. The consequences of Cardiff’s move from Division 1 (Editor’s note: the Premier League, equivalent of our Ligue 1) to Division 2.
The current estimate was provided by Analytics FC, as recalled by our colleagues from the Team. It would aim to establish the probabilities for the Cardiff football club to remain in the English Premier League. According to the British company Analytics FC, the conclusions of this analysis are as follows: if Emiliano Sala had been able to play 60% of the matches, Cardiff would have had a 54.2% chance of remaining in the Premier League.
Another argument put forward: FC Nantes must be seen as the sponsor of the flight on which Emiliano Sala traveled. Even if the transfer was effective at the time of the accident, as the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Editor’s note: in Switzerland) decided, “it was indeed the organization of this theft that caused the damage“, said Cardiff lawyer, Me Céline Jones.
Claims that FC Nantes rejects without exception. For the club of “Canaries“, Cardiff’s requests have no reason to be made. According to them, the Nantes club cannot be held responsible for any damage because “Fifa, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Editor’s note: TAS, in Switzerland) have already ruled that the transfer had been carried out at the time of the theft and therefore that Emiliano Sala was indeed a Cardiff player at the time of his death“. We tried to contact the club to find out more, but without success.
Across the Channel, this request is widely followed. The BBC, English public television, recalls the English club’s declaration before the court, in June 2023.If Sala had been able to play, he would inevitably have scored goals between January and June 2019 and Cardiff would have remained in the Premier League. It would be unrealistic to think that he would not have scored any goals“, declared the club’s lawyer, Me Céline Jones, during a hearing (link in English).
The Daily Mail, another British media outlet, reports the relegation in 2019 of this Cardiff team. It was then led by coach Neil Warnock. The English had then finished “third in the Premier League, two points from maintaining“, mentions the newspaper in its online version. “Although it is unclear whether Sala’s goals would have kept Cardiff up to par, he averaged a goal every three games for Nantes in the French league and was expected to perform well in the Premier League“, completes this media.
Emiliano Sala died on January 21, 2019. The plane carrying the Argentine player crashed in the English Channel. A report from the British authorities stated “a maneuver carried out at too high a speed before the plane crashed into the sea at a speed of 270 miles per hour (435 km/h)“, we then indicated in our article. The organizer of the theft had been sentenced to prison for several acts of negligence.
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