Cardiff City president Mehmet Dalman appeared before the judicial police in Nantes on Thursday, as part of the investigation that followed the complaint filed in January by the Welsh club itself in the Sala case. Emiliano Sala died on January 21, 2019 with the pilot in a plane crash in the English Channel when the forward was on his way to join Cardiff after leaving Nantes.
The ongoing investigation into the Sala case was marked on Thursday by the hearing of Cardiff President Mehmet Dalman in Nantes. According to Presse Océan, Dalman was listened to for almost four hours by the financial brigade of the local judicial police, along with his French lawyer, Antoine Vey, and a translator.
Contacted Thursday night, Vey declined to comment, as did Mehmet Dalman.
The organization of the flight
This hearing took place within the framework of the preliminary investigation initiated at the beginning of the year after the presentation of a complaint against X, revealed by the newspaper L'Équipe, before the Nantes prosecutor, at the end of January, to clarify the modalities of the transfer de Sala (which amounted to 17 million euros) and the organization of the tragic flight, focusing on Waldemar Kita, former president of Nantes.
This criminal complaint was filed by the Welsh club for acts of “illegal exercise of the activity of sports agent”, “illegal exercise of air transport” and “involuntary homicide”. It also seeks to identify the actions of Scottish intermediary Willie McKay, who participated (without a license) in the transfer and whose agent son, Mark, had the mandate to sell Nantes to the Argentine forward.
A dispute still pending before the CAS
For their part, Nantes claims to stay out of this new stage. At the same time, the two clubs continue to face each other before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS), in a legal and financial dispute over the payment of the transfer of Emiliano Sala. Cardiff denies the validity of the contract for this transfer. The deadlines have been delayed and the hearing scheduled in this case should not take place before the end of the year. The TAS has not officially scheduled any hearing on this case before December 9 and does not answer on the matter.