Sala case

[G rangetown Blue]

Re: Sala case

FC Nantes fans have made contributions to the family via several fund raising events, they love Sala. I wish people would not tar everyone with the same brush, as it’s the owner (Kita) who is calling all the shots in this, the Nantais hate him, and would love nothing more than to see him go to jail, and Cardiff (and Bordeaux) get reimbursed, although I’m not sure how Bordeaux will fare (with their sell on clause) in all this.

[NinianKnight]

Re: Sala case

Cardiff (and Bordeaux) get reimbursed, although I’m not sure how Bordeaux will fare (with their sell on clause) in all this.

Would Bordeaux have been paid when Tan finally paid the outstanding monies to Nantes a few years ago?

[TaffsWellThatEndsWell]

Re: Sala case

Despite what any critics might say, Cardiff City are fast becoming the moral guardians of professional football, which is great to see. It makes me feel proud.

Let’s forget that, before this tragedy occurred, club officials were perfectly content to deal with a banned agent to the point that they even employed two of his sons despite there being no evidence that they would ever be good enough to play at Championship level.

Let’s also ignore that, following Emiliano Sala’s tragic demise, the club spent years denying they had ever officially signed the player during repeated attempts to avoid paying his transfer fee. And let’s overlook the fact that the club accepted Ł12 million from a mysterious third party who are apparently gambling on making a profit from a court case involving the death of a young footballer.

None of that really matters. Make no mistake, this litigation has little to do with money. It’s simply an attempt by Cardiff City officials to protect the integrity of the game. The club’s statement says as much, so it must be true.

Why do you view the club being in the wrong for dealing with the McKay family, where his son was a registered intermediary? Even then, if it has taken this incident for the extent of Willie McKays involvement to come to light, and for some of the murkier things involved with intermediaries to come to the forefront of the discussion, it seems to me that the club moved fairly swiftly to expel the family from the club pretty soon afterwards. Why can't they be advised to engage with the murky world by a "seasoned" manager, and then decide that those dealings were not right afterwards?

Also, and I'd appreciate any clarity here as I'm not clear, I thought the reason that the club initially suggested that he was not officially their player was that that was the advice given to them by their insurance company when they sought recompense. If so, wouldn't they have a legal obligation to seek a ruling one way or another to be granted compensation. Otherwise they would have been left with a large bill to pay and no insurance to cover it, without having done anything wrong - that's not a reasonable position for anyone to be put in is it?

I'm not saying the club have always been squeaky clean in all of their dealings, but I'm struggling to see why there is such resentment to their position or actions here...

[G rangetown Blue]

Re: Sala case

Would Bordeaux have been paid when Tan finally paid the outstanding monies to Nantes a few years ago?

Possibly.

[blue matt]

Re: Sala case

Why do you view the club being in the wrong for dealing with the McKay family,

I'm not saying the club have always been squeaky clean in all of their dealings, but I'm struggling to see why there is such resentment to their position or actions here...

Hatred of Tan, nothing more, nothing less :shrug:

[TheBirchgrovePub]

Re: Sala case

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/emiliano-sala-trial-court-hearing-cardiff-city-nantes-timeline-hz83lsrmr

Summary of the case in the Times. Warnock back and forth with the banned agent about the transfer for weeks beforehand and was flew out by him to watch a game Sala was playing in. Those emails and texts were not submitted as evidence by Cardiff :hehe:

[splott parker]

Re: Sala case

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/footb...line-hz83lsrmr

Summary of the case in the Times. Warnock back and forth with the banned agent about the transfer for weeks beforehand and was flew out by him to watch a game Sala was playing in. Those emails and texts were not submitted as evidence by Cardiff :hehe:

I don’t think anyone can dispute that Warnock is up to his neck in the whole sorry affair.

[JumpersforGoalposts]

Re: Sala case

Also, and I'd appreciate any clarity here as I'm not clear, I thought the reason that the club initially suggested that he was not officially their player was that that was the advice given to them by their insurance company when they sought recompense. If so, wouldn't they have a legal obligation to seek a ruling one way or another to be granted compensation. Otherwise they would have been left with a large bill to pay and no insurance to cover it, without having done anything wrong - that's not a reasonable position for anyone to be put in is it?

The insurance dispute was due to the club not adding Sala to the insurance schedule until the Monday, so when they submitted their claim it was refused as the insured event had already occurred before adding him to the schedule.
The legal dispute was that the club claimed this was accepted practice where a player is signed over a weekend. The court effectively decided a 50/50 liability outcome.
It was not in any way connected to the EPL player registration rules.

[Wales-Bales]

Re: Sala case

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/footb...line-hz83lsrmr

Summary of the case in the Times. Warnock back and forth with the banned agent about the transfer for weeks beforehand and was flew out by him to watch a game Sala was playing in. Those emails and texts were not submitted as evidence by Cardiff :hehe:

https://web.archive.org/web/20251208...line-hz83lsrmr

[Steve the Tea]

Re: Sala case

INTERESTING INFORMATION ON THE SALA CASE REPORTED IN THE TIMES TODAY

Banned Agent Key to Cardiff Demand for ÂŁ100m over Emiliano Sala Death

Matt Lawton, Sports News Reporter of the Year
Monday December 8th 2025, 6.18pm; The Times

https://www.thetimes.com/article/2894be61-88f4-4b07-8c73-9f2a40a2900e?shareToken=7f408c7a1aeca518a5f72c7c81f27e39

Welsh club are suing Nantes in French courtroom, alleging unlicensed agent Willie McKay brokered the deal for striker who died in plane crash

Sala signed for Cardiff from Nantes on January 20, 2019. A day later he died in a plane crash flying to his new club

It is nearly seven years since Emiliano Sala was killed in a plane crash but it is only now, on a day when Cardiff City sent their lawyers into a courtroom in France, that the full, murky details are emerging of a football transfer that ended in such tragedy.

In a case heard at the Commercial Court of Nantes on Monday, Cardiff are pursuing damages of more than ÂŁ100million from FC Nantes by presenting evidence they say reveals the extent to which the ÂŁ15million transfer of the 28-year-old Argentinian striker was conducted by unlicensed intermediaries both here in the UK and in France.

The Welsh club, which in January 2019 had completed a deal to sign Sala in the hope he could score the goals that would keep them in the Premier League, argue that Nantes are responsible for the playerÂ’s death because they enlisted the services of a banned agent, Willie McKay, to broker the deal and it was the 66-year-old Scotsman who then involved David Henderson, who was convicted for arranging a flight that was illegal due to a lack of proper certification and the use of an unqualified pilot. The small aircraft carrying Sala from Nantes to south Wales crashed into the sea. The body of David Ibbotson, the pilot, has never been recovered.

Nantes have consistently denied McKayÂ’s involvement, first at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and now in this case in France, a judgment from which will come on March 30. Instead they stress that they mandated his son, Mark McKay, to conduct the transfer on their behalf, and focus on one of the key findings in the inquest: that the cause of SalaÂ’s death was, in part, a carbon monoxide leak in the plane.

They also reject Cardiff’s principal argument for the sheer size of their claim, which is €120.2million (about £105million) in economic loss after their relegation to the Championship that season, and a further €2million for reputational damage plus legal costs. Nantes are arguing that there was no guarantee that Sala would have secured their place in the Premier League.

Nantes are also making a counterclaim, accusing Cardiff of abusing their right to go to court and “judicial harassment”.

But CardiffÂ’s case is built on the evidence secured last year in a separate out-of-court settlement with Willie McKay, which enabled them to obtain previously undisclosed documents that reveal email communication between him, the owners of Nantes and the unlicensed French agents, Bakari Sanogo and Baba Drame. There is a separate criminal investigation in France focused on the use of Sanogo by Nantes, and Cardiff have disclosed correspondence that shows Franck Kita, the son of Nantes president Waldemar Kita, updating both Willie McKay and Sanogo on the status of SalaÂ’s move.

McKay, who was unlicensed at the time, says he was assisting his son over the transfer of Sala from Nates to Cardiff City

Cardiff claim that, while a mandate was indeed given to Mark McKay to find a buyer for Sala, the French club in fact used his father, who at the time had lost his agentÂ’s licence because of bankruptcy.

Today Willie McKay is once again listed on the FA website as a licensed agent. He told The Times on Friday that he was not acting as an agent in the Sala transfer. “I was working with my son,” he said. “I was helping my son.”

Fifa rules strictly prohibit clubs and players from using the services of an unlicensed agent. Indeed, in France it is a criminal offence. Yet correspondence secured by Cardiff and presented in their case seems to show Willie McKay playing a central role in the transfer when he was banned from performing any agency services.

On November 15, Willie McKay emailed the West Ham chairman, David Sullivan, saying he was in Paris with the owner of Nantes, Waldermar Kita, explaining that he had “put Emiliano Sala (Nantes) into Mario… we have the mandate from Nantes”.

On the same day Willie McKay also forwarded an email he had sent to Sullivan, regarding Sala, to a French agent he has said he works with, Baba Drame.

On the day Mark McKay received the mandate from Nantes to sell Sala, Willie McKay told Cardiff: “We have an exclusive mandate from Nantes.” McKay Sr also confirmed that he had “asked for the mandate from Nantes for Sala” personally.

Evidence shows that Willie McKay made direct contact with a number of other Premier League clubs, Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Everton among them. In an email to Kita, the Nantes president, on November 29, Mark McKay states that it was the plan for his father — and possibly the unlicensed Sanogo — to be present at a meeting in Nantes to discuss the Sala transfer to Cardiff.

CardiffÂ’s case states that the delivery of the signed mandate from Nantes to Mark McKay was sent via email through a chain that included two unlicensed agents, one of whom was Willie Mckay.

On November 21, 2018 it was first transmitted by Nantes’ legal manager, Samuele Lanoë, to Sanogo, who in turn sent it to Dramé, who then sent it to Willie McKay. He then forwarded it to his son, Mark.

Cardiff claim Mark McKay was nothing more than a front man for his father, pointing to other evidence. Mercato Sports was a company set up in 2017, at a time when Willie McKay was banned from being an agent and a director of a company. Janis McKay, Willie’s wife, and Mark McKay were named as directors and it was under Mercato’s umbrella that Mark conducted the Sala transfer. The company, however, was dissolved in 2023 — the same year Willie McKay’s ban as both an agent and a director ended — and Mark McKay did not retain his registration as an agent beyond 2024.

Willie McKay texted Neil Warnock, then the Cardiff City manager, to say: “If you want get Sala don’t fanny about Burnley owner wants me to come to match tonight!” This email was not included in Cardiff’s case in the French court but it is in possession of the club and further illustrates McKay Sr’s involvement. Burnley later said they had no interest in Sala.

At 18.59 on the same day, Mark McKay emailed Warnock to say: “Just to make you aware, I have the full mandate for Emiliano Sala. If you have any further interest, I would prefer to send him to Cardiff rather than anywhere else, especially after the way my brothers [his younger brothers were registered as players with the Cardiff academy] been treated by all the staff down there. Compared to who else is out there, I think he’s the player who can make a big difference for you.’”

On December 5, 2018, the McKays flew Warnock and Kevin Blackwell, CardiffÂ’s assistant manager, to Marseille to watch Sala play.

At 18.53 that day, in what was half-time during the game, Mark McKay sent Warnock an email with an exclusive mandate from West Ham signed by the club chairman, David Sullivan, to buy Sala attached. In the subject line it read: “Private between you and I”. This was another email excluded from Cardiff’s court submission but it also in possession of the Welsh club and further highlights the way a father and son operated in tandem during the transfer.

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock speaks at a press conference.

On January 6, 2019, Willie McKay sent an email to Sala. McKay intimated that any stories in the media reporting possible interest from West Ham, or any other club, had been planted by them simply to create a market, illustrating how agents sometimes use journalists to create a market for a player.

“Cardiff have been told you don’t want to go there,” said McKay Sr. “That’s probably our fault. It was us who put in the media about other clubs wanting you — West Ham, Everton etc, to create an interest in you. That’s what we do. It can be misleading for the player himself, but unless we do this most people would not know you because nobody follows the French League.”

Previously, Fifa, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Federal Court all ruled that Cardiff must pay the ÂŁ15million transfer fee to Nantes.

The inquest into SalaÂ’s death on January 21, 2019 concluded that he died as a result of injuries he sustained in the crash, while stating that the flight was illegal because the aircraft was not operated in accordance with commercial safety standards and Ibbotson did not have a commercial license, a night rating, or recent experience flying in instrument meteorological conditions. He also was colourblind.

Willie McKay had chartered the plane from an operator, David Henderson, who was not licensed to provide commercial flights.

It was deemed “likely” that the pilot and Sala had been affected by carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak in the heating sleeve of the aircraft, which would have been detected with the proper checks for a commercial flight. However, the investigation also concluded that a loss of control of the aircraft was made more likely because the flight was not conducted with the proper safety standards, particularly because of the pilot’s lack of training.

At Cardiff Crown Court, Henderson was sentenced to 18 months in prison. McKay, though named as the flightÂ’s organiser, was not prosecuted.

In France, Cardiff now continue their fight, in a court that has jurisdiction that extends beyond powers that were available to the bodies in Switzerland.

The club have used financial experts to estimate the overall cost of relegation, and also claim they suffered reputational damage because they initially withheld the transfer fee to Nantes.

More significantly, they are also now armed with new evidence and what they certainly consider a far stronger case. They say Nantes should be held liable because of the extent to which Willie McKay and other unlicensed agents were involved both in the transfer and the ill-fated flight that claimed an under-qualified pilot and a young footballer dreaming only of playing in the English Premier League.

StT.
<><
:tea:

[Wales-Bales]

Re: Sala case

"On December 5, 2018, the McKays flew Warnock and Kevin Blackwell, CardiffÂ’s assistant manager, to Marseille to watch Sala play."

I wonder what plane and pilot McKay used to transport Warnock and Blackwell to Marseille?

[The Lone Gunman]

Re: Sala case

"On December 5, 2018, the McKays flew Warnock and Kevin Blackwell, CardiffÂ’s assistant manager, to Marseille to watch Sala play."

I wonder what plane and pilot McKay used to transport Warnock and Blackwell to Marseille?

Warnock revealed the answer to that question in a press conference shortly after Sala's death.

[TheBirchgrovePub]

Re: Sala case

"On December 5, 2018, the McKays flew Warnock and Kevin Blackwell, CardiffÂ’s assistant manager, to Marseille to watch Sala play."

I wonder what plane and pilot McKay used to transport Warnock and Blackwell to Marseille?

So we used the McKays to our advantage in the deal. But we are suing Nantes for using the McKays in the deal. Do I have this right? Or am I missing something?

[Wales-Bales]

Re: Sala case

Warnock revealed the answer to that question in a press conference shortly after Sala's death.

Was it the same plane or a commercial flight?

[The Lone Gunman]

Re: Sala case

Why do you view the club being in the wrong for dealing with the McKay family, where his son was a registered intermediary?

Is that a serious question? Actually, don't answer that.

There is much I'd like to say about the stinking hypocrisy and utter bullshit involved in this matter, but the problem is that senior club officials read this board, my identity is well known to them and I don't trust them one iota, so I'll keep my own counsel (if you'll pardon the pun).

I will quote Willie McKay, though. Speaking to the Guardian about Mehmet Dalman in May 2019, he said: “Mehmet’s a lovely man. He’s been great for Cardiff City and my sons. Mehmet’s going to do what he’s going to do. I know he is under pressure from the owner.”

If you want to find the details of the club's failed appeals to FIFA, the Court of Arbitration in Sport and the Swiss Federal Tribunal, or reports about the insurance claim, you can Google it. The information is readily available if you can be bothered to search for it.