BLUEBIRDS TOLD TO PAY £5.3M
FIFA ORDERS CITY TO PAY AGREED FIRST INSTALMENT OF TRAGIC STRIKER EMILIANO SALA’S £15M TRANSFER FEE:
CARDIFF City have been ordered by Fifa to pay £5.3m to Nantes for the transfer of Emiliano Sala.
Fifa ruled that the Bluebirds must pay the first instalment of the agreed £15m transfer fee, a club record, which equates to £5.3m.
The Argentine striker, 28, was tragically killed in January when his plane crashed in the Channel while travelling from France. The Bluebirds had argued they were not liable to pay the £15m on the grounds he was not officially their player at the time of his passing.
The ruling was announced yesterday after it was decided at a Fifa Players’ Status Committee meeting last week.
Now a verdict has been reached, it means both Nantes and Cardiff have a period of 10 days to request a copy of the grounds of the ruling and decide if they want to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
This particular decision is in relation to the £5.3m Nantes were due from Cardiff in their first instalment. Such was the payment structure agreed between the two clubs, City would have paid only that amount by now.
It has been reported that Cardiff will have to pay the full £15m transfer fee as this decision will set the precedent for future payments in order to reach the full sum.
The full details on when the balance of those payments are due, a further £9.7m, are as yet unclear, however the BBC reported the second instalment is due in January.
This, as previously mentioned, is all subject to appeal.
Cardiff have always insisted that certain conditions of the deal to bring Sala to the Welsh capital had not been met and that they are not responsible for paying the £15m fee. As such they had not made any interim payments.
A Fifa statement read: “In a meeting held on September 25, the Fifa Players’ Status Committee established that Cardiff City FC must pay FC Nantes the sum of 6m corresponding to the first instalment due in accordance with the transfer agreement concluded between the parties on January 19 for the transfer of the late Emiliano Sala from FC Nantes to Cardiff City FC.
“The Fifa Players’ Status Committee, which never lost sight of the specific and unique circumstances of this tragic situation during its deliberations on the dispute at stake, refrained from imposing procedural costs on the parties.
“The findings of the decision were notified to the parties concerned today. Within a deadline of 10 days, Cardiff City FC and FC Nantes can request a copy of the grounds of the decision, which can be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.”
A further statement from Fifa read: “Cardiff City FC must pay FC Nantes the sum of 6m, corresponding to the first instalment due in accordance with the transfer agreement concluded between the parties on January 19 for the transfer of the late Emiliano Sala from FC Nantes to Cardiff City FC.
“The sum of 6m corresponds to the first instalment currently due in accordance with the contract. For confidentiality reasons, we cannot comment at this stage on potential future instalments or other conditions of the transfer agreement.”
A Cardiff City spokesperson said: “Cardiff City FC acknowledges the decision announced today by Fifa’s Players Status Committee regarding the transfer of Emiliano Sala. We will be seeking further clarification from Fifa on the exact meaning of their statement in order to make an informed decision on our next steps.”
After the aircraft was located, Sala’s body was recovered on February 6, while pilot Dave Ibbotson remains unaccounted for.
The most recent report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said Sala had “potentially fatal” levels of carbon monoxide in his system, with Mr Ibbotson likely to have been affected.
Sala was on his way to Cardiff when the Piper Malibu plane being flown by Mr Ibbotson crashed into the English Channel.
The AAIB report said: “Toxicology tests on the blood of the passenger showed a carboxyhaemoglobin (COHb) saturation level of 58%.”
It said anything above 50% is likely to cause “seizure, unconsciousness or heart attack”. A final report will be published at a later date.
Sala’s family have called for the remains of the plane to be raised from the seabed so it can be examined in detail but the AAIB said it would not “add significantly to the investigation”.
Last week, a CCTV company director and her employee were jailed for illegally accessing footage of Sala’s body in the mortuary.
Sherry Bray, 49, the director of Camera Security Services Limited in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and her employee Christopher Ashford, 62, accessed footage of the procedure.
Bray had sent a message to night worker Ashford before his shift, which said: “There’s a nice one on the table for you to watch when you’re next in.”
Both replayed the clip during separate shifts before Bray took a picture of it on her mobile phone and sent it to her daughter on Facebook Messenger, leading to it being widely shared on social media, Swindon Crown Court heard. Judge Peter Crabtree jailed Bray for 14 months and Ashford for five months.