English Premier League club Cardiff City and French club FC Nantes were plunged in sorrow after it was confirmed that in-form Argentine striker Emiliano Sala was on a light aircraft that went missing over the English Channel.
The aircraft was travelling from Nantes in west France to Cardiff when it went missing off Alderney in the Channel islands. French aviation authorities confirmed Sala was on it. The aircraft is believed to have crashed and the chances of finding survivors are remote.
The 28-year-old striker was signed by Cardiff City from FC Nantes for a reported record fee of around $19 million, last week. Following this he had travelled to Nantes to bid goodbye to his former club and teammates. Both Nantes and Sala had tweeted the picture showing him with his former teammates. The picture was, ironically, captioned 'The last goodbye' in French. Sala was returning to Cardiff when the aircraft went off the radar.
La ultima ❤️ ciao @FCNantes 👋🏻💛💚 pic.twitter.com/SV1dNHbYYH
— Emiliano Sala (@EmilianoSala1) January 21, 2019
Though an Argentine by birth, Sala earned his stripes in French football. After playing youth football with Argentine side Club Proyecto Crecer, he moved to France to ply his trade for Bordeaux. However, the 21-year-old then was unable to make the playing XI regularly and so, played for US Orleans and Niort, on loan during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons respectively. He scored 37 goals in 74 matches.
Sala's purple patch continued with Caen in 2015, and soon FC Nantes bought him. His 42 goals ever since saw English clubs like West Ham, Everton and Leicester, among others, competing with each other for the 6' 3” striker, before Cardiff City clinched the deal.
This season, in Ligue 1, he scored 13 goals in all competitions, only behind Kylian Mbappe and Nicolas Pepe.
A search and rescue operation was carried on for a few hours but had to be called off because of worsening weather conditions. The latest reports said that it has been resumed.
FC Nantes, meanwhile, has postponed their games against Entente on Wednesday and St Etienne on Saturday.
Cardiff executive director Ken Choo said in a statement: "We were very shocked upon hearing the news that the plane had gone missing.
"We expected Emiliano to arrive last night into Cardiff and today was due to be his first day with the team.
"Our owner, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, and chairman, Mehmet Dalman, are all very distressed about the situation. We made the decision first thing this morning to call off training with the thoughts of the squad, management staff and the entire Club with Emiliano and the pilot.
"All of us at Cardiff City FC would like to thank our fans, and the entire footballing family for their support at this difficult time. We continue to pray for positive news."
