Review: BBC SOUNDS - Transfer: The Emiliano Sala Story!

This review featured in issue 165 of the TRUE FAITH fanzine. It’s a tragedy that speaks much of how modern football works.

You might remember the tragedy of Emiliano Sala’s death in 2019 as the plane carrying him from Nantes to Cardiff crashed inexplicably into the English Channel killing him and the pilot, David Ibbotson. Sala was 28 when he died and the Argentine striker who had moved to France from his home in Cululú to make his career as many have his countrymen have done previously and will continue to do was about to complete a big-money move to Cardiff City, then a Premier League team.

This is a nine-part documentary which drills deeply into the circumstances of his death and that of the pilot, Ibbotson. I can’t say I enjoyed this given the subject matter but found it a compelling listen which was hugely troubling in parts.

Something on Sala himself. It is not the done thing to speak ill of the dead but the lad in any event but this young man was loved. He had a small network of friends and seemed lacking in the bling lifestyle stereotypically associated with the sport. Dare I say it there was something of the Bruno Guimarães about him.

Described as a quiet, reflective, modest lad the impression given was he had no real appetite to leave Nantes for the PL but as a professional footballer a certain part of him would have to accept how the game commodifies talent. Nantes were keen to sell and cash in on their asset.

Nevertheless it was impossible not to feel for a lad being plucked from Nantes to support Cardiff’s futile attempt to remain in the PL.

Nantes needed the money and transfers attract flies around the honey-pot. Step forward one Willie McKay, football agent who at one point in the Freddie Shepherd era had a very close relationship with Newcastle United.

You absolutely cannot blame McKay for Sala’s death – that was ultimately the responsibility of men so desperate for the money they took wild risks carrying a young man in a plane which was unsafe and flown by someone without the credentials to do so.

Few people in football come out of this tragedy very well but Neil Warnock, the then Cardiff manager, does. Warnock had the humanity to travel to Sala’s funeral and displayed a degree of honour lacking elsewhere in the web of contacts who are fond of accepting the rewards of football but few of its responsibilities.

Michael Martin @TFMick1892.bsky.social