Premier League club Cardiff City’s record new signing,
Argentine striker Emiliano Sala, is missing presumed dead after a light
aircraft he was travelling in disappeared over the English Channel.
Sala, signed on Saturday from French club
Nantes for a reported fee of 17 million euros ($19.3 million), was
flying to Cardiff aboard a small plane that disappeared from radars
around 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Guernsey on Monday night.
French civil aviation authorities confirmed
that 28-year-old Sala “was on board the plane”. It is thought there was
one other passenger on the aircraft.
A statement from police on Guernsey, a
British island just off the coast of France, said the pilot had
requested to lower his altitude shortly before air traffic control in
neighbouring Jersey lost contact with the plane.
After a search was called off on Monday
because of high winds, two helicopters, two planes and a lifeboat joined
renewed efforts on Tuesday morning to find the single-propeller plane.
“So far over 1,000 square miles have been
searched by a total of five aircraft and two lifeboats,” Guernsey police
said at 1145 GMT.
“There has been no trace of the aircraft. The search is continuing.”
‘Distraught’
Sala’s father, Horacio, told Argentine
television station C5N he was “distraught” at the news, which he
discovered from press reports.
“I don’t know anything, I haven’t had
any information. I can’t believe it, it’s incredible,” he said. “I’m
distraught. Hopefully everything will be OK.”
Sala, who had been at Nantes since 2015 and
had scored 13 goals in all competitions this season, had signed a
three-and-a-half-year contract with relegation-threatened Cardiff
subject to receiving international clearance.
Neither
club has commented publicly on the disappearance, but Nantes have had
their French Cup match against third-tier side Entente SSG on Wednesday
postponed.
Meanwhile, Nantes fan group ‘A La Nantaise’
released a statement calling for supporters of Sala’s former club to
gather in the centre of the city for a vigil at 6:30pm (1730 GMT).
When he put pen to paper at Cardiff on
Saturday, Sala, who also has Italian nationality, said in a statement:
“I’m very happy to be here. It gives me great pleasure and I can’t wait
to start training, meet my new team-mates and get down to work.
“For me it feels special (to be the club’s
record signing). I have come here wanting to work and to help my
team-mates and the club.”
Sala’s last post on Instagram showed him surrounded by players from Nantes. “La ultima ciao (the last goodbye),” he wrote.
Cardiff, who currently sit third from bottom of the English Premier League with 19 points, said they were “very concerned”.
“We are awaiting confirmation before we can
say anything further. We are very concerned for the safety of Emiliano
Sala,” the club said in a statement.
The accident, if confirmed, comes only three
months after the Thai billionaire owner of Leicester City football club
died in a helicopter crash that shocked the club and supporters around
the world.
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and four others died
on October 27 shortly after taking off from the pitch of the club’s
stadium in central England.
Disconnected cockpit pedals, which are used to
control the rotor on the helicopter’s tail, were found to be the cause
of the accident by investigators.
‘Likeable lad’
Sala began his footballing career at French
club Bordeaux, who he joined in 2010, and spent loan spells at other
French clubs including Orleans, Niort and Caen.
He joined Nantes in 2015 for one million euros
and appeared to be peaking as a player in recent seasons, overcoming
technical shortcomings that had held him back earlier in his career.
He was tipped for a move to Turkish giants Galatasaray last summer.
“He’s a very likeable lad, very hard working,” his coach at Nantes, Vahid Halilhodzic, said of Sala recently.