Sky Views: Footballers are no longer seen as humans, now they're simply assets

Sky Views: Footballers are no longer seen as humans, now they're simply assets

There aren't any hotels in Emiliano Sala's hometown of Progreso, Argentina, a seven hour drive north of the capital Buenos Aires and home to just 3,000 people. One of the main places to meet friends and eat is the petrol station just off the main roundabout.

So, the night before his public funeral service, Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock and the club's chief executive Ken Choo, checked into a smart but basic hotel in Santa Fe, the nearest big city.

Image: Cardiff manager Neil Warnock at Sala's funeral

It was in Santa Fe that the body of 29 year old Sala would eventually be taken to be cremated.

The two men chatted solemnly in the lobby. They were eventually joined by Sala's mother Romina and sister Mercedes to whom they offered their heartfelt condolences.


The next day they attended the funeral in Club San Martin and, in the hall where Sala had played basketball as a child, they watched as his family sobbed beside his casket.

They saw his friends place wreaths of flowers bearing the names of places of significance in his life - one from his primary school, another from a rival football club.

Wearing the daffodil of Wales on their suit jacket lapels, Choo and Warnock stood outside the sports hall in the baking sunshine for almost an hour and spoke of their devastation at the tragic loss.

They could see from the outpouring of grief in the town, Emiliano Sala wasn't just a footballer to those in Progreso, but a real human being whose loss had left so many utterly bereft.

Image: Sala's funeral took place in Progreso in Argentina

They knew that attending his funeral to represent Cardiff was the right thing to do, or at least the right thing to be seen to do. They knew he was, as far as the world was concerned, a Cardiff player when that plane crashed into the sea off the coast of Guernsey, never mind the tiny bureaucratic error which meant the deal wasn't absolutely complete in the eyes of the Premier League.

They, like everyone else, had seen the pictures of Sala on the club website, putting pen to paper beside Choo.

Why, then, has Cardiff's moral compass gone so unforgivably awry since then?

It was announced last week that Fifa has ruled Cardiff must pay the first £5.3m instalment of the total £15m transfer fee to Sala's old club Nantes that has thus far been withheld.

"Cardiff's owners are sullying the name of the club and disrespecting the wishes of many of these fans by refusing to pay as much as a penny towards the transfer so far."

It follows that two further payments of around the same amount would be due in January 2020 and January 2021.

I spoke to someone at the club within minutes of the FIFA decision being published and it was immediately clear that Cardiff have no intention of abiding by the ruling.

They still object to paying the Sala transfer fee on two grounds. The first is a loophole; that he wasn't officially registered with the Premier League as he hadn't signed a revised document by the time he boarded that ill-fated flight back to what would have been his first training session for the club.

The second as the source put, is that "even if he was our player, then it was negligence on the part of Nantes to put 'our asset' on such a plane."

Image: Sala and Cardiff owner Ken Choo as the Argentinian signed for the club

They are referring to the fact that it was Willie McKay, an intermediary acting on behalf of Nantes, who sorted the transport arrangements for Sala.

But it is the wording here - "our asset" - which is the most revealing part of this unedifying saga and Premier League football in general.

Players are no longer considered human beings, rather they are treated as pieces of meat, commodities in this ever intensifying tug of war between football as a game and football as a business.

The saddest part is that we all saw it coming. Sala's body hadn't even been retrieved from the wreckage on the sea bed before the public wrangling over money began.

Daniel Ribero, the president of Club San Martin which Sala played for as a boy, is 7,000 miles away from the Premier League but understands perfectly how it works.

Image: Cardiff City have been ordered to pay Sala's transfer fee

His club stood to benefit financially from the sale of Sala to Cardiff, via selling-on clauses. But on the day of Sala's funeral he was not interested in that.

"This is where we bring out our worst human qualities or traits in a person," he said, "I understand we're talking about huge amounts of money and each team wants to take care of its finances.

"Our club would also get some benefit of the transfer," he added, "it's called solidarity payment. But we are not interested in any of that, we just want to mourn Emiliano."

Cardiff fans, too, showed enormous compassion in the wake of Sala's death, something the owners could learn from. The day after the plane went missing, the world's media descended on the Cardiff City stadium.

A group of teenage boys showed up to pay their respects. A few days earlier they'd had a picture taken with Sala when he signed for the club and had returned to mourn him, as far as they were concerned he was their player.

Image: Sala signed to Cardiff from Nantes

The same was true of the season ticket holder who cried as he lay flowers for Sala at the foot of a statue of club legend Fred Keenor.

Cardiff's owners are sullying the name of the club and disrespecting the wishes of many of these fans by refusing to pay as much as a penny towards the transfer so far.

Sala's family deserve the peace at least, of not having this tawdry battle over money played out in public.

Nantes have certainly not covered themselves in glory either, demanding the money be paid just days after Sala's death.

The French club has, seemingly, made no effort to reach a settlement deal with Cardiff or offer any support, financial or otherwise, to Sala's grieving family.

Cardiff has the option of appealing the FIFA ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and it seems almost certain they will do so.

Hopefully somebody at one of these club rediscovers a shred of humanity before that happens.

In a statement last week, Cardiff said they were "extremely disappointed" with the FIFA committee's decision and would appeal to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport).

The ruling was reached "on a narrow aspect of the overall dispute", they argued, without considering all the documentation.

"There remains clear evidence that the transfer agreement was never completed in accordance with multiple contractual requirements which were requested by Nantes, thereby rendering it null and void."

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Colin Brazier - How I've learned to cope with parenthood after my wife's death