FA SNUB APPEAL OVER SALA’S PLANE CRASH

THE Football Association and other sports bodies did not reply to a plea for help to eliminate the illegal flights which caused the death of footballer Emiliano Sala.

The FA and Lawn Tennis Association were among organisations from the worlds of sport and music which the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) wrote to in September 2019 — just nine months after Sala was killed in a plane operated by a businessman who did not have a commercial licence and was using an unqualified pilot.

CAA chief executive Richard Moriarty told the organisations in the letter that sportspeople were at particular risk and pleaded for help in a campaign which would alert them to the dangers and urge them to check out operators.

The letter, seen by the Mail on Sunday, asked the FA and others for ‘public support for the launch of the campaign by naming you on the relevant information on our website and in any media work’.

But the CAA did not get a single reply to its letter — despite the death of Sala and pilot David Ibbotson when their Piper Malibu craft crashed off Guernsey. The campaign was never launched.

Three years after Sala’s death, unregulated private charters still remain so prevalent that the coroner at the player’s inquest, which concluded on Thursday, has written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps urging him to tackle the issue.

An FA spokesman said: ‘We recognise the CAA’s important role as a regulator. We have been in dialogue with them since this tragic incident.’