HE WAS A BROTHER, FRIEND, SON AND HERO... NOT A COMMODITY

IT HAD to happen. Money was destined to enter the equation in the aftermath of Emiliano Sala’s death. The affected parties are involved in a dismal dance, none willing to act in a way which might impute some kind of financial responsibility. Prepare for the lawyers to enter the fray, too. Two weeks on from the crash which it is thought claimed the 28-year-old’s life, there are evasion strategies everywhere you look. Even the identity of the Piper Malibu’s owner remains a mystery. The aircraft is registered to a Trust company which doesn’t own it and categorically refuses to offer clues as to who does. A duty of care and consideration to Sala’s family should cut through these grim calculations. Sala gave four of the best years of his football life to Nantes, blossoming into the club’s outstanding talent through hard work. It’s why the fans loved him. When it came to helping raise £130,000 to search for the missing aircraft, they were the ones who contributed — along with players who barely knew Sala; Adrien Rabiot, Ilkay Gundogan, Dimitri Payet, Demarai Gray and Corentin Tolisso. How gratifying it would have been to learn that Nantes had committed a substantial sum of money to Sala’s family before their formal letter to Cardiff requesting payment. A sum of £1.5million, three years of the salary he earned there, feels like the minimum appropriate offer. Something similar from Cardiff, too, the clubs working together to do right by the family. It goes without saying that the ‘agents’ who stood to take a cut from the deal — the McKay family, Bakari Sanogo, Baba Drame and possibly one other — should be pledging all that they stood to earn from the transfer to the Salas. The individual who has lost his life was a brother, friend, son and hero, not a commodity. Each day that passes without a pledge to help those dearest to him shames the game he loved and those who sought to gain from him.