Emiliano Sala, one year on exclusive: Furious Cardiff City call lack of action over tragedy an 'appalling' scandal
The chairman of Cardiff City condemned the response to the death of Emiliano Sala as an “appalling” national scandal on Monday night after a Daily Telegraph investigation found no evidence of anything having been done to prevent a repeat.
Ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary of Sala’s death in a plane crash, Mehmet Dalman launched a scathing attack on the Government, as well as the aviation and football authorities, over its failure to crack down on the kind of illegal flight alleged to have been organised for Sala.
Claiming the issue had been “swept under the carpet” despite both public and private lobbying in the past year from his club and industry experts, Dalman warned: “What happened to that poor boy could happen again.”
Dalman spoke out after The Telegraph found that Premier League sides snubbed calls by Cardiff last April for them to agree new regulations banning the flying of players on non-commercially licensed aircraft and that the Government and aviation authorities also ignored demands by the club and the Air Charter Association (Baca) for tougher penalties – including prison time – to be imposed on those carrying out illegal flights.
It was claimed on Monday by an aviation insider that such flights had continued with impunity in the year since the Piper PA-46 Malibu on which Sala was travelling plunged into the English Channel en route to Cardiff from Nantes on Jan 21 2019.
Neither the plane nor pilot Dave Ibbotson – who is missing, presumed dead – were licensed to carry passengers commercially and the man who chose them, David Henderson, was arrested last summer on suspicion of manslaughter before being released on bail.
The crash that killed Sala remains under police investigation, as does experienced light-aircraft pilot Henderson, who organised the flight on behalf of the man who helped broker Sala’s £15 million transfer from Nantes, Willie McKay.
Dalman said: “Make no mistake, what happened to that poor boy could happen again. All the circumstances that existed then that allowed it to happen remain the same. Absolutely nothing has changed.”
Branding the matter an “appalling” national scandal, he added: “This is something for the Government to intervene in, and they need to act to outlaw the sort of unlicensed flight that was responsible for Emilano Sala’s death.”
Cardiff last year pledged to ban the use of such flights and called for all Premier League sides to agree regulations forcing them to do the same, but The Telegraph has been told there has been no such rule change.
The law on illegal flights also remains unaltered, with the Government revealing last year, in a letter seen by The Telegraph, that its planned response to the Sala crash was “further work to educate consumers about the rules, and potential risks, relating to such flights”.
That work was meant to have been carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority, which failed to provide any detail on Monday on what it had done to prevent a repeat of the crash. It also failed to answer questions on what action had been taken against illegal flights since Sala died.
The final report of the air accident investigation into the crash is to be published by the end of March, the same month the latest pre-inquest hearing into Sala’s death was scheduled to take place. Two previous bulletins revealed details of the licences held by the plane and pilot and that Sala had been poisoned by carbon monoxide.
As well as demanding action against illegal flights, Dalman last year called for a crackdown on unlicensed agents after McKay helped broker Sala’s move despite not being licensed to act as an agent since going bankrupt in 2015.
The Scot continued to operate through a firm run by his son, Mark, which stood to make £1.5 million out of the Sala deal, and no action has since been taken to stop him doing so by the football authorities.
“Again, this is simply appalling,” Dalman said. “But you have to understand why the authorities have gone missing. It’s too much hard work and they don’t want to rattle so many cages. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty.”
Cardiff, who were on Monday night still planning to set up a trust fund in Sala’s memory, are awaiting a date for their spring appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over their refusal to pay Nantes his £15 million transfer fee. They want the French club to be held liable for the death of the striker as Nantes had mandated McKay to sell him.
After failing to convince Fifa to do that, they are determined to exhaust their legal options before paying a fee Dalman said in the recently released book The Killing of Emiliano Sala would put them at risk of “bankruptcy” following relegation from the Premier League.
Cardiff have invited fans to pay their respects to both Sala and Ibbotson outside their stadium on Tuesday. A memorial service will be held at the city’s St David’s Cathedral.
Nantes, meanwhile, will unveil a specially designed Argentina-themed kit to be worn in tribute to their former player during their Ligue 1 match against Bordeaux on Sunday.
The UK lawyer for the Sala family, Daniel Machover of Hickman and Rose solicitors, said they would mark the anniversary “in private, quiet contemplation of their loss”.
He also called for all investigative bodies to provide a full update to the next pre-inquest review hearing into the player’s death by Feb 14, singling out the CAA, which he said “must speed up its work”.
Machover added: “The family’s primary concern remains for the full inquest to take place as soon as possible, so that they can finally learn the truth about what happened and ensure that no family has to suffer a similar preventable loss of a loved one.”
Those sentiments were echoed by the manager who brought Sala to Cardiff, Neil Warnock, who also revealed he would have quit a year ago but for meeting the Argentine’s family at his funeral.
Admitting he had still not got over the tragedy, he said: “The pain’s there all the time. I don’t think that ever goes away. So, goodness knows what the family’s like.”
