Emiliano Sala: Rest In Peace

I've worked in insurance for 20 years and actually used to deal with a Premiership club's various policies (I only did the boring, low level admin for it but got to see all the cover) and you are right about them covering their assets. I even remember having to put players on "cover" who were on trial (we had to go into a room away from others to process it so other staff members would not know about prospective transfers).

This Sala situation is a weird one though if the transfer was part way through. Both sides could argue that he was the other parties responsibility. It's like when you buy a house, there's a period between exchanging contracts and completing on the deal where people often don't know who is responsible for what.

Except when the buyer exchanges contracts, they are obliged to insure the property. If the house burns down before completion, it’s the responsibility of the prospective buyer.

But your general point that it’s unclear from an insurance perspective is spot on. If Cardiff’s insurer won’t pay out for to these ‘irregularities’, then they have to fight their corner.

£15m is a lot of money at that level, it could have implications on their ability to buy other players etc etc.

It’s not particularly palatable squabbling over a dead player, but they have to be financially responsible.
 
Except when the buyer exchanges contracts, they are obliged to insure the property. If the house burns down before completion, it’s the responsibility of the prospective buyer.

You're right but the number of calls I used to get from people who thought otherwise (they would typically wait till they moved in) was scary.
 
Uhh, a sign of good will between two clubs who were impacted by the tragedy of a player's death? If insurance isn't going to come into play for this situation, then what else can they do?

The idea of one club saying "we want the lot" while the other says "you're getting feck all from us" is perhaps a bit too cold for me to accept. Splitting the fee is just a sensible middle-ground for both clubs, I reckon.

Maybe I'm just being too sentimental, but even if insurance can't help either club, and Cardiff are told they don't have to pay anything, I still feel like they should.

Does this only come into play when a player dies ? What about long term injuries, or players not living up to expectations, maybe Liverpool should fork out the odd £70mill to Barcelona since Coutinho has been poor for them, it's good will and all.

The source said: “The transfer agreement between Cardiff and Nantes was subject to several conditions.

"If any were not satisfied, the contract would be deemed null and void, with no payment due.”

“Nantes proposed that clause. They asked for the strict notification requirements.

“The transfer deadline was just over a week after that. So if the transfer didn’t complete on the 22nd of January, Nantes had time to find an alternative buyer for the player."

Nantes are believed to be planning to oppose Cardiff's refusal to pay, and have stated they sent all the relevant paperwork to FIFA prior to the accident involving Sala. A spokesman for the club added: "As for Emiliano Sala's registration in the Premier League, FC Nantes has no information about it. "And if it could be a problem for Cardiff, it is not a problem for Nantes."
 
I don't recall the exact state of the transfer when the accident happened, but was the medicals all completed already etc?

I'd assume, as the post by @UncleBob above - the "conditions" of transfer are going to be key.

If all conditions were met, then Cardiff will end up with the liability, but if some of the conditions to complete the transfer have not been met, Nantes might be in a tricky situation.

Though, if you're diligent, Nantes should have insured the player up until the point such conditions have been met, and ditto Cardiff (from that point onward). Nantes might not have had insurance for the full selling price though. It would probably have been at book value.

It's sad but as mentioned above, taking the emotion out of it, it's just a business transaction at the end of the day. Players are commodities/assets.
 
I'd expect Cardiff to explore the legal grounds and insurance. We don't know the full details but I'd expect he was a Cardiff player by then. He went back to say goodbye. He's his own and Cardiff's responsibility. Nantes have sold the player and he's decided to travel back and forth on the agents plane.

If I bought a painting in France for 15 million I don't get to say I'm not paying if it ends up in the ocean. It's my responsibility for it's travel and insurance. I wouldn't have the auctioneer or some antique broker deliver it to me because they're coming to England anyway to visit by chance. Yeah mate stick it in the back of your Audi, you'll drive carefully won't ya mate?
 
I'd expect Cardiff to explore the legal grounds and insurance. We don't know the full details but I'd expect he was a Cardiff player by then. He went back to say goodbye. He's his own and Cardiff's responsibility. Nantes have sold the player and he's decided to travel back and forth on the agents plane.

If I bought a painting in France for 15 million I don't get to say I'm not paying if it ends up in the ocean. It's my responsibility for it's travel and insurance. I wouldn't have the auctioneer or some antique broker deliver it to me because they're coming to England anyway to visit by chance. Yeah mate stick it in the back your Audi, you'll drive carefully won't ya mate?
Depends on the terms on the contract - you're well within your rights to determine yourself when the transfer of ownership takes place, as well as who is responsible if the goods are damaged/lost during transport.

So with respect to Sala, it all depends on the respective contractual obligations of Cardiff and Nantes.
 
Depends on the terms on the contract - you're well within your rights to determine yourself when the transfer of ownership takes place, as well as who is responsible if the goods are damaged/lost during transport.

So with respect to Sala, it all depends on the respective contractual obligations of Cardiff and Nantes.

Hence why I said we don't know the full details.

I'd expect him to be Cardiff player at that point but we don't know.
 
Depends on the terms on the contract - you're well within your rights to determine yourself when the transfer of ownership takes place, as well as who is responsible if the goods are damaged/lost during transport.

So with respect to Sala, it all depends on the respective contractual obligations of Cardiff and Nantes.

Any time I've bought from auctions the item is your responsibility once it leaves the auction house. They will arrange insured shipping if you ask for it but that's as far as it goes.

Not sure what you would expect if players are just seen as assets and have a monetary figure put around them.

Cardiff quite clearly screwed up, if the player had completed the transfer as it seems he had. Trying to back out of it now just makes them look like cheapskates.
 
Any time I've bought from auctions the item is your responsibility once it leaves the auction house. They will arrange insured shipping if you ask for it but that's as far as it goes.
This is not an auction though where you pretty much have to agree with whatever terms the auctioner imposes. I'm sure the terms of a football contract will be mutually negotiated and agreed to, and I doubt they're open to interpretation.

Delayed transfer of ownership is a clause which is used a lot in the transport/logistics sector, but doubt it would be the case for Sala.
 
It's shitty but I do have some level of understanding for Cardiff.

They're not a wealthy club, he was their record signing. It's a hell of a lot of money for them to shell out for nothing, basically.

I guess the club's lawyers really wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't try and find a way for the club not to pay that.

Agreed. It's the equivalent of United losing £120m on a signing. You can bet your house the Glazers would Lawyer up to get out of it.

You also must understand they wouldn't be doing it unless they've been strongly advised by their team that they will success in not paying. No club would gamble their reputation AND risk losing the money in the process. They'll most likely win the case and in turn it'll all be forgotten about in a year or two.
 


Hope they lose. The club was happy to announce that he had finally signed ( https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46863238 , subjected to international clearance ) on the 19th of January.

Speaking after the deal was announced, Cardiff City's chief executive Ken Choo said: "It's obviously been a long process to secure the services of Emiliano but I'm very pleased that we're now in a position whereby we can confirm his signature.

"I'm sure all Cardiff City fans will join me in that and we can look forward to seeing our record signing in a Bluebirds shirt."


You have fecking Warnock going on about Sala being his player when he was interviewed after the fecking funeral, that he had promised Warnock the goals that would see Cardiff escape relegation.

But lets sum this up, Cardiff initially wanted to pin this on whoever organized the flight where they wanted to wait until the air accidents report was finished, hoping that it would prove that the plane wasn't ok and/or the pilot wasn't fit and that whoever made the arrangements are also responsible for the accident.

By pure luck they have been made aware of a technicality, that the first contract that Sala signed wasn't approved due to minor details, something that's hardly a stumbling block as it happens often enough, they sent a revised contract which he was supposed to sign, so Cardiff are now attempting to claim that due to a clause in the contract he's still a Nantes player

Quoting the times, who had an article about it on the 21st of February: The family of Emiliano Sala are in danger of missing out on up to £600,000 in compensation for his death because Cardiff City made an error in registering his contract with the Premier League. The league returned the paperwork to the club asking for corrections, and for the Argentine striker to sign the forms again. Before he was able to do so, the 28-year-old died when the light aircraft carrying him from France crashed into the English Channel on January 21, three days after he had become their record £15 million signing from Nantes.

Furthermore:

The PFA had been unaware of any issues over the paperwork, but it is understood that the registration documents were returned to Cardiff by the league asking for corrections to be made.

The league registration is separate to the International Transfer Certificate, which was completed after Sala's move. That was registered with the Football Association of Wales and confirmed him as a Cardiff player, leaving the club liable to pay Nantes the transfer fee.

So the signing and everything was completed, but Cardiff made a mistake that resulted in the registration forms being returned to Cardiff, asking for a few corrections for Sala to sign the new forms so he could complete the registration with the league. Everything else seems to be in order.
"
Now they are arguing that since the first registration attempt failed (thanks to Cardiff), the contract is null void because there was a clause saying that the premier league also had to clear the registration, something that never in a million years would've been even close to an issue if the plane hadn't crashed

Absolute bunch of cnuts.
 
Disgraceful on Cardiff's part. All too happy to receive the good wishes from the rest of the footballing world when the lad died, but now they're doing a good impression of Peter the Apostle: "Who? Sala? Never heard of him!"
 
Mark 1: The financial damage is £15 million.
Mark 2: The financial damage is £15 million + reputation damage

Yeah well done guys.
 
Hope those shameful scumbags go down and keep going down. Wankers.
 
If these stories are true, then Cardiff have absolutely lost any of the sympathy they had earned.
They've already got one of the all time biggest arses managing them, but this is next level material.
 
Really should have toned down the reaction if they were trying to avoid paying in the first place. Not only a scummy move but just seems like the club tried to milk the positive PR that came their way in the aftermath.
 
I hope Cardiff go bankrupt and the club die. Absolutely disgusting from this "club".
 
Cardiff are going down anyway. We play them in the last game of the season (the irony). I hope we see them off with another 5-goal thumping.

Feck 'em! The fecking tight wads!
 
Anyone seen this? Why oh why if he wasn't qualified to fly at night did he take the chance? Such an avoidable tragedy..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47749265

I heard about this on the radio. They were saying that he wasn't qualified to fly at night and that he was colour blind.

On the one hand, qualified or not, he's not going to deliberately fly into the sea. On the other hand, what has being colour blind got to do with it?
 
I heard about this on the radio. They were saying that he wasn't qualified to fly at night and that he was colour blind.

On the one hand, qualified or not, he's not going to deliberately fly into the sea. On the other hand, what has being colour blind got to do with it?

You need to be able to quickly tell the difference between a red and green light.
 
I heard about this on the radio. They were saying that he wasn't qualified to fly at night and that he was colour blind.

On the one hand, qualified or not, he's not going to deliberately fly into the sea. On the other hand, what has being colour blind got to do with it?

My brother wanted to be a pilot in the army, got the grades etc then they discovered he was colourblind, there's obviously degrees of severity, and you can become an airline pilot while being colourblind, just not completely colourblind.

So it's just the media trying to vilify the pilot even more when the not being able to fly at night would have been enough, chances are you've had a flight with a colourblind pilot as I think the chances of men being colourblind is 1 in 10 while a women are 1 in 200.
 
You need to be able to quickly tell the difference between a red and green light.

I never quite understand what colour blindness means, in practical terms, but if every green light has always been red and every red light has always been green, your an experienced pilot, I don't think it should make so much difference.

I think people are just trying to come up with someone, or something, to blame for a terrible tragedy.
 
I never quite understand what colour blindness means, in practical terms, but if every green light has always been red and every red light has always been green, your an experienced pilot, I don't think it should make so much difference.

I think people are just trying to come up with someone, or something, to blame for a terrible tragedy.

Instruments have LEDs that shine either green or red (green for fine, red for urgent problem). Though you'd have thought they'd be used in the daytime as well so I'm not sure if that makes any difference.

I think it's probably more to do with approach lights on runways and signal lights from the tower being red/green colour coded as well as navigation lights on the wings of other aircraft being red/green and pilots have to know the difference between the two to know what direction the other plane is flying in i.e. away from you or coming right at you.
 
Instruments have LEDs that shine either green or red (green for fine, red for urgent problem). Though you'd have thought they'd be used in the daytime as well so I'm not sure if that makes any difference.

I think it's probably more to do with approach lights on runways and signal lights from the tower being red/green colour coded as well as navigation lights on the wings of other aircraft being red/green and pilots have to know the difference between the two to know what direction the other plane is flying in i.e. away from you or coming right at you.

I get all that, which suggests that a genuine colour blind person can not fly at all.
 
What a sad twist on an already sad story :( may he R.I.P. and the family find a way to cope.