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Cardiff City say they did not organise the private flight for record signing Emiliano Sala which has gone missing.

The club told Wales Online this morning that they offered their £15million new striker a commercial flight to come to Cardiff to link up with his team-mates for the first time.

However, other travel arrangements for the journey over the English Channel were made at Sala's end, say the Bluebirds.

The small Piper Malibu plane was not booked by the club. It disappeared over the Channel Islands and search teams continue to look for signs of a wreckage or survivors.

Questions are being asked about the suitability of a plane of that type to make that journey. An Argentinian aeronautical expert, Commander Jorge Polanco, told Argentinian network TyC Sports he was "surprised" the plane was being flown at night and in winter.

But the Civil Aviation Authority said there is "nothing preventing a single engine aircraft flying commercially at night".

The CAA's Richard Taylor said: "Single engine aircraft can be chartered. We don't know what the status of this particular flight was - whether a commercial or private flight.

"There's nothing preventing a single engine aircraft flying commercially at night. They were restricted to daytime under commercial operations until a few years ago for a turbine engine aircraft.

"They can now fly at night and in difficult conditions. But we don't know what engine this aircraft has."

Cardiff chairman Mehmet Dalman told us on Wednesday morning: "I can say to you categorically that the plane had nothing to do with Cardiff City.

"We were not involved in booking the plane. In fact, we are trying to ascertain ourselves exactly what did happen. The club is looking into the matter and we want to find answers too."



He also said: "We spoke to the player and asked him if he wanted us to make arrangements for his flight which, quite frankly, would have been commercial.

"I can't tell you who arranged the flight because I don't know at this stage - but it certainly wasn't Cardiff City."

Police are working on four theories in terms of their search operation. You can follow live updates on the search here.

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Dalman also said Cardiff manager Neil Warnock was in a state of shock after hearing the news about Sala.

Warnock had travelled to Nantes to watch Sala play and sell him the Cardiff City dream.

Sala turned down an 11th hour bid to go to China instead because he was so excited about joining the Bluebirds in the Premier League and was keen to link up with his new team-mates.

(Image: Creative Commons)

"Neil is human and he's affected as much as the rest of us are," said Dalman.

"We need to get on and do the right things but at the moment there's a vacuum of information - it's very unsettling.

"Nantes is a big club and we've got to make sure we do the right thing by them and we need to be doing the right thing and keeping up communications to our own fans.

"We do have to keep them informed as to what information we get."