Cardiff City have been ordered to pay the final instalments of Emiliano Sala's transfer fee to FC Nantes just hours after the French club's CEO was taken into police custody.
Franck Kita, Nantes' General Director and son of the club's president and owner Waldemar Kita, was placed in custody on Thursday along with agents Bakari Sanogo and Joaquim Batica.
The men have been taken in by authorities as part of an investigation opened last year by the Rennes’ Specialised Interregional Court into activity involving unlicensed agents, forgery, misuse of corporate assets, money laundering, and tax evasion.
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The Bluebirds - who are in an ongoing legal dispute with Nantes over the transfer fee for the Argentinian striker who died in a plane crash in 2019 - have questioned why they have been made to pay the latest instalments before the police investigation has concluded.
A Cardiff City statement read: "Today, FIFA ordered Cardiff City FC to pay the 2nd and 3rd instalments of the transfer fee for Emiliano Sala to FC Nantes as expected.
"Yesterday the CEO of FC Nantes, Frank Kita, was placed into police custody alongside Bakari Sanogo and Joaquim Batica by the JIRS, French prosecutors specialised in organised crime and financial crime. A judicial investigation was opened in June 2022 on the counts of 'illegal exercise of sports agent activity, forgery and use of forgery, misuse of corporate assets, laundering of aggravated tax evasion and organised money laundering'."
It continued: "The Club's negligence claim in France against FC Nantes exhibits direct exchanges showing Mr Kita was informing Mr Sanogo of the proposed transfer fee for Emiliano Sala. It is not clear why.
"In the circumstances, the Club considers that it would have been fairer if the requirement to pay FC Nantes had been deferred until the conclusion of the French police investigations and the club's claim against FC Nantes in the French courts."
The row between the two clubs is now set to head to the French courts, with the Bluebirds believing they are owed damages by the Ligue 1 side. They are now set to pursue league action after a Swiss Federal Tribunal decided the Court of Arbitration for Sport did not have the power to deal with such a claim.
Cardiff were previously hit by a three-window transfer embargo after failing to pay the first instalment of the £15m fee they had initially agreed with Nantes for the Argentine forward. After failing in their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the ruling, they paid the first instalment in January, believed to be around £7m.
FIFA then lifted the embargo, although the club remain under restrictions imposed by the EFL, who placed the club under a three-window embargo of their own. However, after an appeal, the club have reduced the embargo to two windows, which means they are now able to pay fees for players again in the January transfer window.
