The chairman of Cardiff City condemned the response to the death of Emiliano Sala as an “appalling” national scandal on Monday night after a Daily Telegraph investigation found no evidence of anything having been done to prevent a repeat.

Ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary of Sala’s death in a plane crash, Mehmet Dalman launched a scathing attack on the Government, as well as the aviation and football authorities, over its failure to crack down on the kind of illegal flight alleged to have been organised for Sala.

Claiming the issue had been “swept under the carpet” despite both public and private lobbying in the past year from his club and industry experts, Dalman warned: “What happened to that poor boy could happen again.”

Dalman spoke out after The Telegraph found that Premier League sides snubbed calls by Cardiff last April for them to agree new regulations banning the flying of players on non-commercially licensed aircraft and that the Government and aviation authorities also ignored demands by the club and the Air Charter Association (Baca) for tougher penalties – including prison time – to be imposed on those carrying out illegal flights.

It was claimed on Monday by an aviation insider that such flights had continued with impunity in the year since the Piper PA-46 Malibu on which Sala was travelling plunged into the English Channel en route to Cardiff from Nantes on Jan 21 2019.