Nantes (AFP)
Cardiff announced Tuesday that it will file a lawsuit against X in Nantes to shed light on the transfer and death of Emiliano Sala, who disappeared a year ago in a plane crash, the lawyer for the club said. Welsh.
This complaint relates to the terms of the transfer and the organization of the fatal flight, said AFP Me Antoine Vey, partner of Me Eric Dupond-Moretti, targeting in particular the president of FC Nantes Waldemar Kita.
"The first question posed by this complaint is: who are the intermediaries who intervened? Why did they not have a license, and was it not planned, given the fairly large amount of the transfer, a series of unreported retrocessions for the benefit of FC Nantes and its president (Waldemar Kita)? We have elements which seem to indicate that the president had asked for 10% on the sale for his personal account ", accused Me Vey.
The lawyer also wondered about the exact role of FC Nantes in the logistics of the flight: "The flight raises a lot of questions. We just want to understand what was the involvement of (intermediary Willie) McKay in the flight , the breaches that took place, "continued Mr. Vey.
Asked about this complaint early Tuesday evening, the public prosecutor of Nantes told AFP that he had still "received nothing".
- "Great serenity" on the Nantes side -
This Cardiff initiative comes a year after the death of the Argentine attacker, on January 21, 2019. Sala, transferred two days earlier from Nantes to Cardiff for 17 million euros, died in the accident of the small passenger plane who was driving him to his new club.
Since then, Nantes has demanded payment for the transfer to Cardiff, which refuses to do so, citing irregularities in the transfer and in the organization of the flight that cost the life of the 28-year-old player and his pilot, David Ibbotson, 59. .
At the end of September, Fifa agreed with Nantes and ordered the payment of a first tranche of 6 million euros, but Cardiff seized the Sports Arbitral Tribunal (CAS), whose decision is not expected before June.
In a separate statement, Cardiff said Tuesday it has elements in hand to support its approach. "At the end of our investigation, we believe that there is enough evidence of breaches which require an investigation by the French authorities," the Welsh club wrote.
A source in the entourage of FC Nantes has nevertheless expressed the "great serenity" of the French club.
- "Maneuver" -
"We are absolutely amazed by this umpteenth move by Cardiff, which has continued for the past year to instrumentalize this drama and to flee its responsibilities," said the source. "We are indignant at this new media offensive just a few days after the commemorations in tribute to Sala and a few days before the regularization by Cardiff of their memory before the CAS."
The report of the British investigators on the accident is expected to be released in late March.
The flight was organized by the British pilot David Henderson, at the request of the intermediary Willie McKay and his son Mark, the agent mandated by Nantes to carry out the transfer of Sala, who declare to have paid the entire trip .
Cardiff claims for its part to have offered a commercial flight to the player, who declined it, even if he was worried before takeoff of the state of the small plane.
However, this single-engine Piper PA-46 Malibu was not authorized to carry out commercial flights and its pilot, David Ibbotson, was not authorized to transport paying passengers. It is also unclear whether he was allowed to fly at night.
fcc-faa-kam-jed / jr
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