- Saudi crown prince says no Israel ties without Palestinian state
- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ |
Footballer Sala felt pressure over transfer before plane death, inquest hears
Emiliano Sala felt under "a lot of pressure" to complete a transfer to the Premier League shortly before he died in a plane crash as he headed to his new club, an inquest heard on Tuesday.
The Argentina-born striker was joining Cardiff, then in the English top-flight, in a £15 million ($20 million) switch from French Ligue 1 side Nantes.
Dorset Coroner's Court, in southern England, heard that the 28-year-old was on board a private plane flying from Nantes to the Welsh capital on the evening of January 21, 2019 when it crashed in the English Channel, close to Guernsey.
Pilot David Ibbotson, 59, was also killed but his body has never been found.
On the first day of an inquest into the footballer's death, Sala's mother, Mercedes Taffarel, told the court in a written statement that her son was happy when he "eventually accepted the idea of a move".
"He felt it was the right time to move clubs and to another league," she said.
"It seemed to him that the Nantes management was also pushing his exit from the club because they were going through some financial problems."
- 'Intense weeks' -
She said the weeks leading up to his death, in December 2018 and January 2019, "seemed very intense".
"Cardiff put on a lot of pressure on him to complete the sale quickly but Nantes asked for more money and Emi felt in the middle of the dispute," Taffarel added.
"Emi was in some doubt to go ahead with the move. Finally, the sale was agreed, not because of his performances as a player at Nantes, which were very good, but because Nantes needed the money."
Taffarel said she spoke to her son regularly and, when she did not hear from him on the day of the flight, she assumed he had gone to bed early after arriving in Wales.
The following day she learned that the plane carrying her son was missing.
Eventually her family organised their own sea search and the plane was located with Sala's body inside.
She said: "No-one can bring Emi back to us, but we ask for justice so that Emi can rest in peace and give us a little bit of peace of mind knowing that we did everything we could so similar deaths are prevented in the future.
"Our pain will never go away and we carry it with us all the time. All we ask for is justice and we want no stone unturned to find out what happened."
David Henderson, the businessman who organised the flight that crashed in the Channel, was jailed in November for 18 months for flouting safety rules.
The inquest into Sala's death is due to last about five weeks.
J.Fankhauser--BTB