Sala crash: Cardiff may sue Nantes over pilot’s licence

• Cardiff boss Neil Warnock (second right) and club CEO Ken Choo (right) joined mourners at the funeral of Sala in his hometown in Argentina on Saturday

Cardiff ‘may sue Nantes’ following the death of club record-signing Emiliano Sala.

The Premier League club have found no proof that the pilot of the plane that crashed in the English Channel had the right licence to fly Sala following an internal investigation, according to the Telegraph.

The paper has reported that if the Air Accidents Investigation Branch can support Cardiff’s evidence that pilot Dave Ibbotson was not allowed to ‘carry passengers on a commercial basis’, that would be negligence on the part of whoever selected him.

Willie McKay and son Mark helped organise the trip from France to the Welsh capital and senior members at the club also believe they could be liable, as well as the Ligue 1 side – whom the two agents were working on behalf of.

Cardiff boss Neil Warnock and club CEO Ken Choo joined mourners at the funeral of Sala in his hometown in Argentina on Saturday.

The 28-year-old striker’s body was repatriated on Friday before it was returned to Progreso, about 350 miles from Buenos Aires, for the public vigil.

Warnock and Choo joined locals from the small town for a service in the gymnasium of Sala’s boyhood club, San Martin de Progreso.

Sala died on January 21 when the plane he was travelling in crashed in the English Channel after he had visited players at his former club, Nantes.

His body was pulled from the wreckage on February 7 but the British pilot, Ibbotson, 59, from Lincolnshire, has not been found.

Meanwhile Cardiff have contacted other top-flight clubs in an attempt to establish whether there may be grounds to avoid paying the full £15million transfer fee being demanded by Nantes for Sala, The Mail on Sunday has revealed.