There are report that Cardiff City could launch a negligence claim against Nantes as soon as next week if an official report finds Emiliano Sala was flown to his death by a pilot who did not have the correct licence.
Premier League side Cardiff already find themselves involved in a legal dispute with French side Nantes over whether they are contractually obliged to pay a transfer fee for the Argentinian striker, who died without playing a game for the Welsh side.
Nantes reportedly demand the first installment of the fee last week but Cardiff’s insurance is believed to only cover around half of the total costs, which would also include agent’s fees and the player’s salary over the course of his three-year contract.
Sala had signed for Cardiff for a club record £15 million and was flying to his new team from former side Nantes in France when his plane went missing over the Channel on January 21.
The wreckage was located on the seabed. Sala’s body was recovered but pilot David Ibbotson is still missing. The aircraft remains under the sea.
Details of how Sala died, and who was responsible, could be clarified in the coming days by Britain’s Air Accidents Investigations Bureau, which had previously said it intended to publish an interim report into the crash within a month of it occurring.
The Telegraph said an internal Cardiff inquiry had found no evidence that Ibbotson held the licence necessary to carry passengers on a commercial basis.
If the AAIB report upholds this view, it may constitute the basis for a claim of negligence against whoever recruited Ibbotson as the pilot for Sala’s flight.
Agents Willie and Mark McKay have said they arranged Sala’s flight but did not select the plane or pilot. The pair had been working for Nantes.
A successful negligence claim against Nantes would reduce the transfer fee that Cardiff owed the French club.
And that payment could decrease further if Cardiff can show that Sala’s transfer was incomplete at the time of his death because he had not yet been registered to play in the Premier League.