October 3 – Cardiff City have decided to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against FIFA’s ruling that they must pay the first instalment of €6 million to Nantes for €17 million striker Emiliano Sala who died in January when the light aircraft carrying him to Cardiff two days after he signed crashed into the sea before he could play a single game.
Cardiff have long argued they were not liable for any of the fee since Sala was not officially their player when he died as his playing registration was not complete and therefore the transfer was null and void.
The case ended up at the door of FIFA’s players’ status committee which sided with Nantes earlier this week.
The French club’s lawyers welcomed FIFA’s ruling but Cardiff say they will challenge the dispute over fee payments at CAS.
A Cardiff statement read: “Following FIFA’s update on their announcement regarding the transfer of Emiliano Sala, Cardiff City Football Club will be launching an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“Cardiff City FC is extremely disappointed at the decision of the Players Status Committee to award against the club. It would appear the committee has reached its conclusion on a narrow aspect of the overall dispute, without considering the full documentation presented by Cardiff City FC to FIFA”.
Cardiff chairman Mehmet Dalman told talkSPORT radio: “We feel very strongly that there is a lot more evidence and a lot more facts that need to be brought out to make an informed decision.”
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