After wheeling away in celebration Bobby Reid, surrounded by his Cardiff City team-mates, held aloft a T-shirt displaying the face of Emiliano Sala as the football fraternity united to pay their respects to the striker, who disappeared in a light aircraft alongside pilot David Ibbotson over the Channel Islands almost a fortnight ago. Reid scored twice on his 26th birthday as Cardiff overcame Bournemouth in what was an extremely poignant evening in south Wales. But the locals say Sala, whose name was sang from start to finish here, is the best striker Cardiff never had. Their first victory of this year, as Cardiff said beforehand, was for Sala and Ibbotson.After raising more than £324,000 online, a privately funded search for the plane, led by the marine scientist David Mearns on behalf of Sala’s family, will begin on Sunday; the French internationals Kylian Mbappé and Adrien Rabiot are reportedly among those to have donated thousands of pounds. Two seat cushions, which are likely to have come from the Piper PA-46 Malibu plane, were found earlier this week. The plane tragically vanished en route to the Welsh capital hours after Sala had said farewell to his Nantes teammates after joining Cardiff for a club-record £15m. He was due to train with his new team for the first time the following day. Continue readingreadfullarticle
