Legal action has begun in France over a claim for more than £100 million in damages relating to the 2019 plane crash in Channel Island waters that killed a Premiership footballer travelling to begin a new contract.
A commercial court in Nantes, western France, opened on Monday and a decision on the dispute between Cardiff City Football Club and FC Nantes is due in March.
The Welsh club claimed they suffered losses of more than 120 million euros (£104m) after Emiliano Sala died in 2019 on a flight that crashed near Alderney – claiming the Argentine striker could have kept the club in the Premier League.
The crash happened just days after the 28-year-old was sold by Nantes FC to Cardiff for £15 million
FC Nantes, the club Sala was leaving, denies wrongdoing.
The civil claim follows earlier criminal proceedings in the UK. In 2021, aircraft operator David Henderson was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of endangering the safety of an aircraft.
A jury found he had arranged the flight despite knowing Pilot David Ibbotson did not have the correct licences to fly passengers commercially or to fly at night.
Search operations across the Channel Islands continued for several weeks before specialist teams located the wreckage north-west of Alderney. Sala’s body was recovered. The pilot’s body has never been found.
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