In the tragic story of Emiliano Sala, it appears his mother, Mercedes Taffarel, has been led to believe in a significant injustice surrounding his death. Sala, who died in a plane crash seven years ago, has left behind questions that some argue entitle Cardiff City to a substantial compensation.
Recently, Mercedes made an emotional journey to Nantes, France, the city closely tied to her son’s final days. During her visit, she retraced the paths of her son, fondly known as ‘Emi,’ visiting Carquefou, the neighborhood he once called home. Her journey led her to the very house where Emiliano lived, though she did not knock on the door.
On Monday, she found herself at the Nantes Commercial Court, under the impression that the judges might order the local football club to pay Cardiff City a staggering £100 million. This claim was based on the tragic death of the 28-year-old, which occurred shortly after his transfer between the two clubs.
Cardiff City, while acknowledging the services of agent Willie McKay in facilitating the transfer, sought compensation far exceeding the £20 million they initially paid for Sala. They demanded reimbursement for what they termed as ‘lost opportunity,’ suggesting that the club’s relegation from the Premier League could have been avoided had Sala lived to play for them.
The entire situation seems surreal. The idea that Cardiff could still be pursuing a claim against Nantes for liability, so many years after the accident, seems unfounded. Neither Cardiff nor McKay could have foreseen that the aircraft would be piloted by someone unqualified, nor that the plane itself was not safe.
On Monday, a French court rejected Cardiff City’s claim for £100million in compensation from Nantes following the death of Emiliano Sala back in 2019
Cardiff signed Sala from Nantes for £15m in January 2019 but he died days later in a plane crash when travelling over to Wales
Madness that Cardiff should still have been claiming Nantes’ liability so many years on, when they, and McKay, could never have known that the plane’s pilot was unqualified and that the plane was a death trap.
Madness that Cardiff, whose communications department had tweeted images of Sala signing on the dotted line for them in January 2019, should have abrogated responsibility for the transit of their player and put it onto others.
Madness that Cardiff had thrown a new gamut of nonsense at their ‘lost opportunity’ claim – compiling ‘virtual projections’ of ‘expected goals’ and ‘expected points’ from that 2018-19 season to demonstrate that they would have remained in the top-flight had their Argentine attacking asset not died. ‘Lost opportunity?’ Lost minds, more like.
It’s nearly four months since I pointed out that the League One club’s case in the latest chapter of their interminable attempt to recoup cash was ‘delusional.’ And sure enough, on Monday, the court rejected all Cardiff’s demands and ordered the club to pay Nantes about £400,000 in legal fees and ‘moral damages’ caused by sullying the French team’s name. The penalty is payable immediately, regardless of any possible appeal.
Amid Cardiff’s long and utterly unsuccessful pursuit of cash for Sala, we have heard nothing about real the scandal at the heart of the case: the way he was touted around clubs in a way beyond his personal control, which left him deeply uncertain and unhappy about the pace at which the Cardiff move came about.
‘Cardiff put a lot of pressure on him to complete the sale quickly but Nantes wanted more money and he felt in the middle of that,’ Mrs Taffarel said in a statement read at her son’s inquest in Bournemouth, which I attended. ‘He felt in some doubt. Those weeks were intense.’
If there was something to be taken from his death, then it might have been a reappraisal of the way players are hawked around like meat in such a way. Yet nothing has changed.
It is madness that Cardiff, who tweeted images of Sala signing on the dotted line for them in January 2019, abrogated responsibility for the transit of their player and put it onto others
The real scandal at the heart of the case was the way Sala was touted around clubs, leaving him left deeply uncertain and unhappy about the pace at which the Cardiff move came about
Jonathan Booker, a former agent now working in sports mediation, told the BBC, on Monday, that there had been a ‘flurry of activity’ in player welfare and duty of care following Sala’s death, but this had not been sustained. Lorna McLelland of the National Association of Player Welfare Officers, told the BBC: ‘In terms of movement of players, central to that is money…it’s always the case and it’s still a little bit of a wild west.’
If, as one suspects, Mrs Taffarel had timed her visit to France because she may have been led to believe that some kind of injustice would be resolved at the courthouse, then she will soon be leaving for Argentina with more disappointment. It wasn’t to be and was never to be.
Word comes down from France that Cardiff have the right to appeal this latest verdict, but she and her family are the ones who are owed something now: closure and peace. It’s time for the club who bought her son seven years ago to cease, end this nonsense and, for the sake of the real victims, let it go.
