Emiliano Sala was convinced to sign for Cardiff City after the agent Willie McKay sent him an email suggesting he planted misleading stories linking him with West Ham and Everton.

In messages giving unique insight into the vast figures and politics behind a Premier League transfer, McKay also suggests the player's mother could claim £1million if he agreed to sign from Nantes. McKay then tells Sala that Neil Warnock has "fallen in love with you" because the Argentinian is a "typical English centre-forward, like Drogba or Alan Shearer".

The email was sent two weeks before the 28-year-old is believed to have died after the single-engined plane he was travelling in crashed in the English Channel. McKay, whose son Mark was an official intermediary, told Telegraph Sport he had released his personal message to Sala to set the record straight.

McKay admits making arrangements for the doomed flight, having told his usual pilot David Henderson: "Dave, I need a plane." However, unbeknownst to McKay, part-time engineer Dave Ibbotson, 59, was at the controls when the Piper Malibu went missing on January 21 after leaving Nantes for Cardiff.

In the prior email, McKay told Sala how Cardiff "will pay you around £50,000-per-week, plus bonuses, on a contract of four to five years. And whoever accompanies you, whether it is your agent or your mother, who, according to English law, can represent you, could claim around £1m from the deal."