Emiliano Sala

[Bar BS3]

36 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Cardiff now refusing to pay anything whilst there is an investigation going on ....

dear oh dear

Lets hope they don’t have the same attitude to anything due to Salas family

But they waved a few T-shirts around at their last game. That makes everything ok, doesn’t it..?! 

[TBW]

3 hours ago, reddogkev said:

R.I.P Emiliano, you will be missed by all football fans.  My thoughts remain with family and friends.

The payment of his fee to Nantes feels irrelevant to me.

Yeah I'm not sure £15 million is very irrelevant to the two clubs. It's not your money so of course you'd feel it's meaningless. 

Now if someone bought a car from you, they'd got the car and were now refusing to give you the money because they were 'checking the paperwork' because they'd totalled it, would it be so irrelevant?

[Super]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

But they waved a few T-shirts around at their last game. That makes everything ok, doesn’t it..?! 

Harsh.

[Bar BS3]

3 minutes ago, Super said:

Harsh.

That’s the reality of the situation. 

[Super]

11 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

That’s the reality of the situation. 

I don't think Cardiff are doing anything different to what any other football club would do or any other Businesses in fact.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Super

[sephjnr]

20 minutes ago, TBW said:

Yeah I'm not sure £15 million is very irrelevant to the two clubs. It's not your money so of course you'd feel it's meaningless. 

Now if someone bought a car from you, they'd got the car and were now refusing to give you the money because they were 'checking the paperwork' because they'd totalled it, would it be so irrelevant?

That logic implies that CCFC were involved in the crash. Which they were obviously not.

[BS3City]

Putting emotion to one side it is harsh, but it's also business. To me the deal had been done, the transaction completed. The "property" (sorry) belonged to Cardiff, therefore surely payment is due...?

[TBW]

6 minutes ago, sephjnr said:

That logic implies that CCFC were involved in the crash. Which they were obviously not.

Not sure where you got that from... Change it to got stolen and totalled then. Who cares, it's not really about the tiny details of my fake story. Pedantic aren't gunna charge the stance on it. 

[Bar BS3]

15 minutes ago, Super said:

I don't think Cardiff are doing anything different to what any other football club would do or any other Businesses in fact.

It’s a fairly unprecedented situation, thankfully. 

At the end of the day, they signed the player (the details of whether the player should ever have even been on that aircraft are not known enough to judge, granted) 

The second he signed that contract, Cardiff were liable for his agreed transfer fee. 

[Son of Fred]

3 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

That doesn’t mean they’re writing it off .

I believe there should be no fee asked for & no fee paid....

It's enough that two people's lives have been cut short with such tragic events-And that's how it should be left.

May they rest in peace & that the families in time find some kind of normality...........

Edited February 7, 2019 by Robert the bruce

[BobBobSuperBob]

3 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

In all honesty, I think this sort of dispute was inevitable in such strange circumstances. My issue is primarily with whoever decided to leak this so it played out in the media. It's not inappropriate and unnecessarily for Sala's family and friends, and indeed Nantes and Cardiff fans, to have this played out so publicly. Any disagreement and discussion should have been kept between the clubs.

 

Cardiff leaked it

 

They received a request after the initial payment was due , on 26th Jan , followed by some days later , a legal letter 

[BobBobSuperBob]

What would be good , would be Cardiff pay Nantes what they are due and Nantes donate a proportion to Salas family

[Bar BS3]

2 minutes ago, Robert the bruce said:

I believe there should be no fee asked for & no fee paid....

It's enough that two people's lives have been cut short with such tragic events-And that's how it should be left.

May they rest in peace & that the families may in time find some kind of normality...........

For fear of sounding cold, if he hadn’t moved to Cardiff, he wouldn’t have been on a plane that was, allegedly, unlicensed to carry passengers and by all accounts, not fit to be in the air in the first place. 

It was Cardiff that put him on that flight, so why should Nantes not receive the fee that they agreed in good faith. 

Surely Cardiff have their players insured..?!

 

[Super]

9 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

It’s a fairly unprecedented situation, thankfully. 

At the end of the day, they signed the player (the details of whether the player should ever have even been on that aircraft are not known enough to judge, granted) 

The second he signed that contract, Cardiff were liable for his agreed transfer fee. 

There are a lot of questions unanswered which is obviously why Cardiff have passed this onto their lawyers. 

[sephjnr]

19 minutes ago, TBW said:

Not sure where you got that from...

"It was wrecked" would have been slightly better wording in this case - the tense of what you wrote inferred blame.

[Super]

7 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

For fear of sounding cold, if he hadn’t moved to Cardiff, he wouldn’t have been on a plane that was, allegedly, unlicensed to carry passengers and by all accounts, not fit to be in the air in the first place. 

It was Cardiff that put him on that flight, so why should Nantes not receive the fee that they agreed in good faith. 

Surely Cardiff have their players insured..?!

 

Was it?

[Bar BS3]

8 minutes ago, Super said:

Was it?

I’ve been led to believe that it was one of Vincent Tans “allegedly” dodgy mates. If that’s wrong then I apologise. 

I agree there are too many unanswered questions, but the fact is they had agreed a fee and the player had signed. He was Cardiff’s responsibility, and Nantes are due the agreed fee. 

You have to feel sorry for Cardiff, regarding the situation, but if payments are due, then the tradgedy that happened shouldn’t mean that Nate’s don’t get their money, which was agreed in good faith. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Bar BS3

[downendcity]

Since Diana's death there seems to be a mood whereby with every celebrity death, for many there is the need to be seen to be mourning and then taking some sort of offence or umbrage with/at anyone or  that does not respond in a similar fashion. I caught a bit of Talksport this morning, responding to this news and Jim White described Nantes as insensitive, by demanding the first instalment of the transfer fee and he almost demanded that his guests felt the same.

While Sala's accident and death are tragic, and in particular the timing, unfortunately life does go on. Have Cardiff stopped paying their tax, wages and suppliers due to the tragedy, or is it just the transfer fee ( for the purchase of a  player that now gives them no benefit or value)? As others have commented, Cardiff and Nantes are businesses, each with their own financial commitments. I presume that both clubs would have made plans around the Sala transfer - Cardiff, in terms of arranging finance to be available to meet the scheduled payments due to the selling club  and Nantes, in terms of sell on fee payments due and cash flow that the first instalment  would enable them to cater for.

At what point would it not be insensitive for Nantes to ask for monies contractual due to them? Presumably Cardiff would have organised the finances to meet the fee prior to the transfer,if so  then I struggle to see any reason why payment cannot easily be made - unless ( apologies for my insensitive cynicism) they are looking to find a way of avoiding payment.  Suggestions that Cardiff are looking at the "small print of the sale contract", if true, is perhaps the most distasteful and insensitive aspect of this. 

 

 

 

[exAtyeoMax]

5 minutes ago, downendcity said:

Since Diana's death there seems to be a mood whereby with every celebrity death, for many there is the need to be seen to be mourning and then taking some sort of offence or umbrage with/at anyone or  that does not respond in a similar fashion. I caught a bit of Talksport this morning, responding to this news and Jim White described Nantes as insensitive, by demanding the first instalment of the transfer fee and he almost demanded that his guests felt the same.

While Sala's accident and death are tragic, and in particular the timing, unfortunately life does go on. Have Cardiff stopped paying their tax, wages and suppliers due to the tragedy, or is it just the transfer fee ( for the purchase of a  player that now gives them no benefit or value)? As others have commented, Cardiff and Nantes are businesses, each with their own financial commitments. I presume that both clubs would have made plans around the Sala transfer - Cardiff, in terms of arranging finance to be available to meet the scheduled payments due to the selling club  and Nantes, in terms of sell on fee payments due and cash flow that the first instalment  would enable them to cater for.

At what point would it not be insensitive for Nantes to ask for monies contractual due to them? Presumably Cardiff would have organised the finances to meet the fee prior to the transfer,if so  then I struggle to see any reason why payment cannot easily be made - unless ( apologies for my insensitive cynicism) they are looking to find a way of avoiding payment.  Suggestions that Cardiff are looking at the "small print of the sale contract", if true, is perhaps the most distasteful and insensitive aspect of this. 

 

 

 

I guess when they have found/retrieved his body from the sea, at least. Or at least when he is legally declared dead. I’m not disputing that Cardiff owe any money but the timing isn’t great. 

The news media are probably spinning this story too but it could’ve been sorted without any of this hysteria. 

 

[downendcity]

1 minute ago, exAtyeoMax said:

I guess when they have found/retrieved his body from the sea, at least. Or at least when he is legally declared dead. I’m not disputing that Cardiff owe any money but the timing isn’t great. 

The news media are probably spinning this story too but it could’ve been sorted without any of this hysteria. 

 

My understanding is that news of Nantes' "demand" was released to the media by Cardiff. 

Don't know about you, but if I owed someone a sizeable sum of money, the last thing I would want is for news about it going to all and sundry. Makes you wonder why Cardiff would release this information, other than it creates just the impact it has?

[Calculus]

Sorry, struggling to understand what difference it makes whether he's declared dead not from the point of view of payment being made. Cardiff bought him from Nantes and he was Cardiff's player when he died. I can understand that Cardiff might have a problem making an insurance claim before a declaration but no idea what that is to do with Nantes.

[PHILINFRANCE]

Firstly, I must say I consider it unfortunate in the extreme, distasteful even, that, at a time when a family are grieving for the probable death of a loved one, a young man with not only his career but also his whole life ahead of him, the media (as ever) are stooping so low as to use scurrilous headlines to make a story out of what, by any measure, is an awful tragedy.

Nevertheless, I should like to add my own views to the discussion on this thread and, hopefully, to clarify a few aspects.

1.)   Much has been made of the fact that Nantes are ‘demanding’ payment of the first instalment of the transfer fee, the not inconsiderable sum of €6M according to a BBC article.

As many readers of this thread will be aware, the French verb ‘demander’ means ‘to ask’, and I suspect the feigned media outrage may be due to some confusion arising out of a simple error in translation in the original letter, which, presumably, was written in French.

It is common in France for invoices to incur interest in the event of late settlement – this is frequently stated on the invoice itself – and I should not be at all surprised if, in order to protect their interests, Nantes simply ‘asked’ for settlement of the sum due by means of a recorded delivery letter (common practice in France) and inserted what is known as a ‘mise en demeure’, thus, in the event of continued non-payment, allowing for interest to start accruing from the date of their letter.

2.)   Neil Warnock, who I must say seems to have conducted himself extremely honourably throughout this whole tragic affair, was quoted as saying he had invited Mr. Sala to join the Cardiff squad in Newcastle, but Sala declined, saying apparently that he wanted to return to Nantes to say goodbye to his teammates and to ensure that his pet dog was going to be cared for pending his move.

I find it inconceivable that such a scenario would have transpired were Sala not already contracted to Cardiff: ipso facto, Cardiff were/are responsible for their player and should honour their contract.

Cardiff are wriggling and their excuses (clarification of the facts!) are embarrassing and risk tarnishing their reputation further: if the plane had landed safely in Cardiff and Sala had fallen to his death descending the steps, there would be no argument.

Just pay up.

3.)   Insurance is, at this stage, a red herring.

All parties involved, clubs and individuals, will have insurance, although, despite speculation both in the media and on this forum, only those with an ‘Insurable Interest’ in Sala will be concerned.

In the meantime, however, it should not be overlooked that Mr. Sala is currently missing and has not yet been declared dead: accordingly, there is currently no death certificate, so any life/personal accident insurance policies will not yet be activated.

I have considerable professional experience of this type of scenario, and shall endeavour to post subsequently in order to expand further.

[exAtyeoMax]

45 minutes ago, downendcity said:

My understanding is that news of Nantes' "demand" was released to the media by Cardiff. 

Don't know about you, but if I owed someone a sizeable sum of money, the last thing I would want is for news about it going to all and sundry. Makes you wonder why Cardiff would release this information, other than it creates just the impact it has?

Yes, seems bizarre. 

[handsofclay]

2 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

What would be good , would be Cardiff pay Nantes what they are due and Nantes donate a proportion to Salas family

If my memory serves me correct, I think this was done in the Dean Horrix case. City paid the full fee of £55,000 and Millwall donated a significant proportion of it to the Horrix family.

[BobBobSuperBob]

An interesting piece.......

Vultures , the lot of them

—————————————————

A text message listing Emiliano Sala and several other players for hire pinged into the phone of a Premier League club's technical director just before Christmas. 

The January transfer window was approaching, clubs were getting desperate, and Willie McKay was busy touting his wares.

On his menu of France-based offerings were Adrien Tameze, Nice's Cameroon midfielder, and Maxwel Cornet, the Ivorian forward at Lyon, as well as Sala — who Cardiff City imagined might be theirs by then. 

There were some deft touches in the McKay text, designed to protect against it being ignored. Watford were already trying to buy Tameze, he mentioned in passing. As things turned out, that player stayed put. So did Cornet.

The recipient — whose club lie in the bottom third of the table — replied with his standard response, asking McKay to put his information on an email, though he wasn't interested.

'Sala was being pumped around to all of us,' he says. 'We had the same scouting reports on him that most clubs would have, based on matches going back to 2017. They were good but he was not near the top of our list.' 

The club in question still found themselves being publicly linked to Sala. It was McKay in full flow. The 59-year-old's modus operandi was laid bare last week, when he surprisingly revealed to L'Equipe an emailed sales pitch he had sent to Sala, revealing that he had deliberately spread misinformation about West Ham and Everton wanting to sign him to whip up interest. 

'We have talked to all the clubs, including Manchester, Chelsea, Liverpool. We think you could end up in such clubs,' he told the player. Not true. 'We make transfers!... Didier Drogba,' he wrote. Not true. 'Keep me away from these lies,' Drogba promptly retorted.

Willie McKay revealed details on a sales pitch made during the Emiliano Sala deal to Cardiff



Few transfer market brokers are as relentless in their selling as McKay, Harry Redknapp's one-time go-to man. 'He's like a dog with a bone,' says one technical director.

Another source involved in acquisition for several top Premier League clubs describes receiving calls from McKay but becoming mildly irritated by him always seeming to be poolside at his one-time Monaco home when making them.

Some can't live with him, yet most clubs can't live without him, either because they are pathologically incapable of putting adequate systems in place to acquire players intelligently, or because they simply need his copious contacts to get them out of a fix. 

Sources in France still marvel at how, when £70,000-a-week Joey Barton was banned for 12 matches and not cooperating at QPR, McKay worked his contacts to shift the player out on loan to Marseille in 2012.

There was something particularly noxious about the Sala sale, though, and not only because of the way this narrative would unfold. Where the Argentinian was concerned, even though no footballing rules appear to have been broken, everyone wanted a slice of the pie.

The Nantes owner, Waldemar Kita, most of all. His club were rooted in the bottom half of France's Ligue 1 as usual and he was in a hurry to cash in on a player who was scoring goals and out of contract in 18 months. Kita gave the McKays' company the mandate to find a buyer, in return for 10 per cent of the fee.

The player’s agent Meissa N’Diaye would also be getting a slice. NDiaye already had a player at Cardiff – Sol Bamba – yet somehow McKay still got in on things. N’Diaye insists that, as Sala’s long-term agent, he had to become involved to protect the Argentine’s interests when Nantes’ desire to sell him to Cardiff became clear. He says he had no involvement with the other four agents surrounding the deal and had tried at all times to find the right move for the player. He had rejected a lucrative potential move to China for that reason. 

Another agent, Babe Drame, who declared on Instagram that he and McKay's son Mark had done the deal when Sala eventually joined Cardiff, capitalised too. (McKay jnr is the registered agent because McKay snr opted not to sit the exams imposed by UEFA.)

Nantes owner, Waldemar Kita, was in a hurry to cash in on a player who was scoring goals

 

Bakary Sanogo, who is close to Kita and agent to Tottenham's Moussa Sissoko among others, also took commission from the deal, for reasons which remain unclear.

The player in question had no idea that such strenuous and complex sales efforts were going on to shift him out of the club and seems to have had no say in the matter, given that he did not initially want to leave Nantes for Cardiff at all.

Sala had become intimately bound up in French life and its football since leaving his home in Argentina, aged 15, for a development academy with links to Bordeaux. He initially struggled to make his way in France, though Nantes was where he began to establish a sense of self.

He loved Carquefou, the charming town north-east of Nantes which he made home. He could let his labrador rescue dog, Nala, off the lead on the fields of the farm behind his house. He liked to walk through the small vineyard across the road where they make Muscadet and cross the streams running off from the Erdre river, where visitors could fish for pike.

He bought veal Milanese from the local butchers' twice a week, cigarettes from the local tabac. Feuillantine was his favourite delicacy from the bakery. The local barber, Jean-Philippe Roussel, who he visited for a cut every third week, became a friend.

However it was up at Nantes' Stade de la Beaujoire that his modestly developing confidence was best witnessed. When he arrived at the club from Bordeaux, in July 2015, he was quiet and self-effacing with very modest French, though by last season he was confident enough to appear at the pre-match press conferences, which usually involve a player and the manager.


He didn't like the one-on-one interviews — didn't feel he had enough to say — though he was very often the one the local French journalists asked for. They smiled at the Spanish mannerisms in his French, spoken with a slight Spanish accent. 'Tranquille' always came out as 'tranquillo.'

There was an old-world charm about those encounters. It was always his habit to greet reporters when he arrived and left — 'Bonjour tout le monde!'; 'Salut les mecs!' Not many afford them such a common courtesy.

The fans loved Sala for the honesty of his endeavour. He was no world-beater and would never be a Manchester City or Liverpool player as McKay had promised. His first touch could be awkward and his running style rather inelegant, with his head deep into his shoulders as he went. He was tall and thin at first, with few muscles at first, though he did develop.

However he had an intuitive talent for scoring goals. The supporters knew that he only needed one or two chances to deliver one, with his particular penchant for fearlessly trying to score with his head. Their song about him encapsulated the work ethic. 'Emiliano Sala, c'est un Argentin qui ne lâche rien, Emiliano Sala, Emiliano Sala, Emiliano Sala.' ('Emilano Sala, the Argentine who never gives up.')

His self-effacement did not prevent him feeling that, at 28, time would soon be running out on him achieving his ultimate goal of playing in European club competition.

The chance seemed to arrive last summer, when Turkish side Galatsaray, who had qualified for the Champions League, made a move. Kita refused even to countenance discussions with the Istanbul team, who were proposing a loan move with an option to buy.

Emiliano Sala has become the tragic pawn in a sordid transfer trail that shames football

Sala was disappointed, though Kita did not spare his sensitivities. 'We always wanted to keep him,' the president remarked. 'Unfortunately, there are people around him who do not always advise him very well. It would be nice if he listened to us a little. We do not want to hurt him. We want to value him.'

He did so, in more ways than one. On November 21, the McKays were effectively mandated to find a buyer for Sala, who had put the summer disappointment behind him and promptly scored 12 goals in 15 games, a tally matched only by France's World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe at PSG.

Sala seemed to accept that the only way he would reach the big stage was via a Premier League club who would pay Nantes handsomely and perhaps be a stepping stone. Even when he returned to say his last goodbyes to friends in Carquefou having joined Cardiff, he gave the sense that it was not completely sure he wanted to leave France. 'Football is a business', he told one. He mentioned that one of his first games would be against Arsenal.

McKay and his family suddenly loomed large in his world. Ten days after the email, Sala was in Cardiff, signing the three-and-a-half year contract that would see his salary rise from €50,000 (about £44,000) a month in Nantes to £50,000-a-week. But though many people became instantly much richer, neither Sala's new club nor his previous one seemed willing to go many extra miles to make the fateful weekend of January 19/20 as straightforward as it might have been.


He was desperate to say his goodbyes properly in Carquefou but, with a little more than 48 hours at his disposal to do so, badly needed a personal jet to get him to Nantes and back to the Welsh capital.

In his sales pitch email to Sala, McKay senior had promised that Cardiff were ready to 'put a jet at your disposal tonight or tomorrow to come to pick you up, you and anyone else you want to bring.' Yet once signed, Sala was told that the club were offering a commercial flight back to Nantes. He felt that half a day's travel each way would leave him too little time to tie up loose ends in the place where he'd come to belong.

At 7.45pm on Friday, January 18, he was in limbo in a hotel room, still unsure how to get back. He texted McKay's sons, Jack, a reserve striker at Cardiff who this week moved to non-League Chesterfield, who told him Willie would organise it all. How much it would cost, Sala asked. Nothing, 'if you help me to score goals,' McKay said. 'Hahaha, with pleasure,' Sala messaged. It was, of course, never to be.

Though an underwater search for the missing plane McKay hired will begin on Sunday, some very fundamental questions remain unanswered about the aircraft itself: not least who owns it and is responsible for its maintenance.

Search for answers took The Mail on Sunday to the obscure premises of Southern Aircraft Consultancy (SAC) Inc, a trust company which took over the registration of the aircraft in 2011, from a company called Cool Flourish — who may still be the actual owners. SAC take over the registration of aircraft to allow owners to protect their identity, for security or financial reasons.

The company is based in the grounds of Earsham Hall, near the market town of Bungay, 20 miles south of Norwich. There, in a brick outbuilding which also houses a kitchen interiors firm, a bridal-wear business, a fine pine furniture showroom and Earsham Hall's tearooms lies the secret of who has questions to answer. Faith Al-Egaily, one of SAC's co-owners, would reveal nothing.

'They have asked us not to speak to the press,' she said. 'We don't have any comment. We don't have anything to do with the aircraft other than the fact we registered it for them.

 

(From Sunday Mail)

Edited February 7, 2019 by BobBobSuperBob

[BobBobSuperBob]

On Cardiff forum

Clearly not the posters claim but source not imdicated

 

 

The ownership questions will not recede, given that Cardiff City have privately expressed concerns about the way their record signing was flown across the English Channel and are thought to be facing a financial loss of about £14million, even after insurance pay-outs. The club are believed to have £16m of personal accident protection but the total cost of signing Sala, including agents' fees and bonuses, may come to £30m.

Flowers were laid at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday for the signing they never got to see, though the game will move on. 'We have to regroup,' manager Neil Warnock said last week. 'Once we get this weekend out the way we can move on. We have to come up with a formula to get points on the board.'

A unmistakable air of desperation haunts the place - and wherever desperation pervades there will be football's middle men and brokers, preparing their next texted list of available targets.

[downendcity]

26 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

On Cardiff forum

Clearly not the posters claim but source not imdicated

 

 

The ownership questions will not recede, given that Cardiff City have privately expressed concerns about the way their record signing was flown across the English Channel and are thought to be facing a financial loss of about £14million, even after insurance pay-outs. The club are believed to have £16m of personal accident protection but the total cost of signing Sala, including agents' fees and bonuses, may come to £30m.

Flowers were laid at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday for the signing they never got to see, though the game will move on. 'We have to regroup,' manager Neil Warnock said last week. 'Once we get this weekend out the way we can move on. We have to come up with a formula to get points on the board.'

A unmistakable air of desperation haunts the place - and wherever desperation pervades there will be football's middle men and brokers, preparing their next texted list of available targets.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reading your other post Bob, it seems that there are an awful lot of people with fingers in Sala's pie. One of the biggest scandals in modern day football is how so many people seem to make so much money from footballers and taking that money out of the game, by doing so very little. 

P.S. How likely would it be that the reason Nantes have "requested" payment from Cardiff, is vbecause they are being pressured by the vultures, who are all expecting their cut?

 

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by downendcity

[bristolcitysweden]

It will be taken to arbitration and hidden away. To much goodwill to be lost by both clubs. Let the dirty work start.

[Maesknoll Red]

The body brought up from the plane has been identified as Emiliano Sala.

[Lrrr]

Some very poor comments on Cardiff's forum given everything that's going on