Cardiff and agents must reveal transfer secrets now… Sala’s family deserve truth
WILLIE McKAY wants to get a few things off his chest.
The man who brokered Emiliano Sala’s murky £15million transfer from Nantes has called it on with Cardiff City by challenging them to a public meeting.
It has to happen - out of respect for the Sala family, they are entitled to complete the story about Emiliano’s tragic death on January 21.
McKay, this notorious, aggressive and volatile Glaswegian, wants it all out in the open now.
Cardiff, stressing the importance of transparency and openness, must agree to it.
Bluebirds manager Neil Warnock, club chairman Mehmet Dalman and chief executive Ken Choo will lose credibility if they do not.
McKay and Warnock know every last fragment of detail of the deal to make Sala — who died when the plane carrying him across the English Channel crashed — a Cardiff player.
He came very, very close to blurting it all out the other night.
When McKay’s name comes up on your phone shortly after midnight, as it did on mine on Wednesday, it is highly unlikely to be for a chat about the missed chance in the Liverpool-Bayern game.
This time, he was conciliatory, reasoned and — by McKay’s standards — measured.
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In a conversation that lasted one hour and two minutes, McKay stressed that if he is to go out, if his days making a mint out of the football business are over, then he will be taking a few people with him.
He says he is prepared to take any question — and has a few of his own he would like to ask.
McKay insists he has nothing to hide and nothing will be off-limits if he can come face-to-face with Cardiff’s powerbrokers.
A few people in that room — and a few more outside of it — would be squirming, that is for sure.
His reputation as a hard-nosed transfer fixer is on the line. He accepts that.
McKay’s family were on 10 per cent of the Sala transfer fee, artificially inflated after Willie told journalists there was interest from Everton and West Ham.
He got it pumped up to £15m, plus nearly £5m in bonuses if Sala scored the goals to keep Cardiff in the Premier League. So the McKays stood to make £2m in commission.
That cut is one of the ten questions, posed by Cardiff and published by SunSport on Monday, that have only been partially answered.
They are withholding payment to Nantes until their lawyers Capital Law are satisfied. Cardiff’s insurers are also sifting through every speck of detail.
Then there are the other questions. Is it usual practice for the manager of a buying club to make small talk with the president of the selling club during a scouting mission to watch their star player?
That is what happened when Warnock, along with assistant Kevin Blackwell, plus McKay and son Mark, travelled to France on December 5.
It was there that Warnock was introduced to Nantes president Waldemar Kita, with Sala scoring one and setting up another in the 3-2 win over Marseille at Stade de la Beaujoire.
Most managers sit in the stands incognito, baseball cap on, collar turned up, when they are on a scouting mission. Warnock glad-handed Kita.
Despite huge reservations on Cardiff’s transfer committee about Sala — he scored once in December and was also benched — Warnock liked the look of him.
For that reason, the Nantes striker was termed a “critical hire” by Dalman.
The transfer committee wanted to sign another defender but Warnock pressed for more firepower.
Cardiff’s transfer committee reminded him that Kenneth Zohore was close to a return to first-team football and the deal with Everton to bring in Oumar Niasse had already been struck.
Warnock wanted another option.
They gave in, finally ending weeks of to-ing and fro-ing with Nantes over negotiations, because Warnock had put Cardiff in with a shout of avoiding relegation.
Against their better judgment, they buckled and agreed to bring in a 28-year-old footballer on the big bucks. Sala signed on January 19.
What happened next, with the Piper Malibu piloted by Dave Ibbotson crashing into the sea on a night flight two days later, has raised many questions.
It is, McKay says, one of the many reasons he wants a public showdown with the Bluebirds’ hierarchy. Over to you, Cardiff.
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