A A commercial court in France has dismissed Welsh club Cardiff’s claims for compensation over the death of footballer Emiliano Sala.
Seven years after the plane crash that killed Sala, Cardiff were still seeking more than €120 million ($138 million) from the player’s former club Nantes after a series of previous legal setbacks for the Welsh club.
Rulings by FIFA, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss Supreme Court have gone against Cardiff in the Nantes legal dispute since Sala’s death in January 2019.
Sala, 28, was signed for Cardiff from Nantes for a club-record fee of €17m as they attempt to avoid relegation from the lucrative Premier League. But the single-engine Piper Malibu plane in which the Argentine international was traveling from France to start his career with Cardiff crashed into the sea near the Channel island of Guernsey. The pilot, David Ibbotson, also died.
The court concluded that Nantes was not at fault in relation to the flight and that Cardiff had not suffered reputational damage. It added that Nantes suffered moral damages and ordered Cardiff to pay €300,000.