Eyewitness France
Arguments about money overshadow mourning for Argentinian striker
The sad loss of Argentinian striker Emiliano Sala and British pilot David Ibbotson in an air accident on January 21 led to an outpouring of grief on both sides of the Channel, with the ripples spreading far and wide as the football world paid tribute to the 28-year-old footballer.
Yet even before Sala’s body had been recovered from the wreckage of the Piper PA-46 Malibu light aircraft in which he had been travelling from France to Wales, football’s harsher side had begun to show itself.
BBC Wales revealed that French club Nantes, who had sold Sala to Cardiff City for € 17million on January 19, were demanding the first of three payment instalments agreed for the player.
In an article on their website, French TV news channel LCI quickly captured the general mood when they wrote of the affair in a piece entitled Death of Emiliano Sala: after the human drama, now it’s about big money.
If the knee-jerk reaction to a subject as grubby as money in such tragic circumstances is one of distaste if not revulsion, the French media has nonetheless been careful in its reaction to the supposed spat. As the article on the LCI website was at pains to point out, “on paper, The Bluebirds are obliged to pay the fee to the French club because a contract was signed, but things are more sensitive and complex than they might at first appear”. France’s biggest daily sports paper,
L’Équipe, managed to get hold of Cardiff chairman Mehmet Dalman on the evening the story broke for a short interview. A wary Dalman confirmed that Nantes had sent an invoice for a first payment of € 6m, but wouldn’t comment on Nantes’ attitude while adding: “I don’t think Cardiff have said that we’re not going to pay.”
A number of French media outlets confirmed that the official paperwork for the Sala transfer was completed by FIFA on the afternoon of January 21, “a few hours before the tragic accident”. They also reported that an invoice had been generated automatically by FIFA’s International Transfer Matching System, an online platform that “introduced standardisation and enhanced transparency based on FIFA’s regulations on the status and transfer of players”.
According to agreed norms, Nantes