the Cardiff City club calculates its damage at 120 million euros in the dispute between it and FC Nantes

Five years after the death of Emiliano Sala in a plane crash, FC Nantes and Cardiff City meet at the Nantes commercial court. After “an in-depth analysis”the Welsh club estimates its loss at 120.2 million euros in the dispute between it and FC Nantes, its lawyer announced Monday April 22.

This analysis must be formally filed Monday afternoon in court during a technical hearing which should set the timetable for the continuation of the procedure in this case. “We will take the time to study these new voluminous documents and these figures”reacted to AFP the lawyers of FC Nantes evoking “almost phantasmagorical hypotheses”.

The actual transfer or not?

Argentine striker Emiliano Sala, aged 28, died in January 2019 in a plane crash over the English Channel while joining his new club, Cardiff City, to whom he had been sold by FC Nantes . Cardiff City believes that the Nantes club was responsible for the private flight on which the footballer took place and that the transfer was not effective at the time of his accident.

The Welsh club therefore took action before the Nantes commercial court to claim compensation for loss of income and other damage suffered by the club due to Sala’s death. A previous estimate put these damages at 100 million euros, resulting in particular from the financial and reputational losses represented by Cardiff’s move from Division 1 to Division 2.

In another procedure linked to the dispute between the two clubs, the FIFA football tribunal last year ordered Cardiff to pay FC Nantes the balance of the transfer of the Argentine player, at the time just over 11 million euros out of a total of 17 million.