Sala agent just wanted to make lots of money

DAILY MAIL

By Peter Allen

Friday 31st January 2019

Football agent Willie McKay told Emiliano Sala he wanted to make 'lots of money' from £15m deal




British football agent Willie McKay told Emiliano Sala he wanted to make 'a lot of money' from his transfer before arranging his tragic flight to Cardiff, a leaked email has revealed.

In an extraordinary insight into the world of football transfers, McKay told the 28-year-old that he'd invented interest from rival clubs to get the deal with Cardiff City done.

McKay, 59, introduced himself to Sala on January 6, days before agreeing the £15 million transfer from French club Nantes by coldly saying he was not interested in the player as a person, adding: 'It's not sentiment, just business.'

In a leaked email to French publication L'Equipe, the agent wrote: 'Emiliano, my name is Willie McKay. We are not interested in your personal belongings; finances, holidays, babysitting, it's not our business.'

Listing multi-million pounds deals involving players moving from French clubs to top English sides including Chelsea and Arsenal, Mr McKay wrote: 'We make transfers! More than 600 until today, from Didier Drogba, to Anelka, Payet, Seri, Anguissa.


Willie McKay, wrote to Sala on January 6 introducing himself

'Let us introduce you to the way we operate and how we came to this Cardiff City saga. We work for clubs in France, and for players who want to be transferred to England.

'As far as you are concerned, we have talked to all the clubs, including Manchester, Chelsea, Liverpool. We think you could end up in such clubs.

'We approached Nantes, as we do with many players in other clubs, to obtain the mandate of sale. We are not preventing you from working with another agent, but most players are very satisfied with our mediation.

'We do not say 'we are like a father to a son to our players'. No, if you had not been a footballer, these people would not be interested in you.

'In the end they are only interested in the money. What we all want a lot of, of course. That's why we like to work with just the clubs. No sentiment, we're just doing business.'

As mystery surrounds what happened to the flight.

Referring specifically to the Cardiff City deal, Mr McKay wrote: 'My experience says: if you do not go for the Premier League now, you will regret it.

'It's been said that Cardiff does not interest you. But that is probably our mistake, because we 'leaked' in the media that other clubs like West Ham and Everton want you. Just to stimulate the interest in you.

'That is how we work and that may be misinterpreted by the player. But without that 'buzz' nobody would know you. Because, honestly, nobody follows the French competition [Ligue 1].'

In an interview with l'Equipe, Mr McKay admitted: 'If I had never asked Nantes for a mandate to negotiate about Sala's transfer, he would still be among us'.

Referring to his entire family – including his wife and three sons – McKay admits that 'the past eight days have been a nightmare for us.'

Mr McKay admits that thehighly experienced pilot he chose to fly Sala from France to Wales drafted in a replacement airman for the job – with disastrous consequences.

Details of the arrangement emerged following the discovery of two cushions from the plane in which Sala is believed to have died following a crash into the English Channel.


Mr Ibbotson, a boiler engineer and part-time pilot, told a friend he was 'a bit rusty' with the instruments of the 35-year-old aircraft and it did not have the licence to carry paying passengers.


Sala (pictured) texted his old Nantes teammates before the flight to say he was scared. He wrote: "If in an hour and a half there is no news of me, I don¿t know if they¿ll send anyone to look for me because you won¿t find me, but you'll know... Daddy, I'm so scared!"


Mr McKay and his son Mark helped negotiate Sala's transfer to Cardiff, and then heard that Sala wanted to spend a day in Nantes seeing club officials and former teammates.

Cardiff offered him a commercial flight for the trip, but Mr McKay offered him a private plane 'for free'.

Mr McKay's choice as pilot was David Henderson, a 60-year-old who had flown light planes around the world, including the Piper Alpha PA-46 due to be used for the trip.

But – for still unknown reasons – Mr Henderson drafted in another British pilot called David Ibbotson, 59.

'Do you want to spend a weekend in Nantes?', Mr Henderson told Mr Ibbotson, a part-time pilot who had admitted to friends on Facebook a few days earlier that he was a 'bit rusty' at flying.

Mr Ibboston, who was known to have financial problems, is said to have told Mr Henderson that he had lost his credit card.

This led to Mr Henderson having to pay for Mr Ibbotson's hotel in France, and for the flight itself.

Mr Henderson's details were accordingly given to officials at Nantes-Atlantique airport, leading to initial fears that he had been piloting the doomed flight.

In fact it was Mr Ibbotson who took control of the plane, and aborted three attempted take offs in terrible weather.

An hour into the flight, Mr Ibbotson told air traffic control he was reducing altitude from 5,000 to 2,300 feet over the Channel Islands.

It later emerged Cardiff's record signing had expressed fears for his life in messages sent to close friends.

In a WhatsApp voice note, he said in Spanish: 'I'm on a plane that looks like it's going to fall apart.'

Aviation experts said the chartered single-engine aircraft should not have been risking the flight in icy conditions.

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Interesting article, if indeed its's true?


The thing that stands out to me, like a sore thumb,,, is the contradicting comment of "wanting to make lots of money" from the transfer deal, & then organising ES a private plane trip for free???

If these comments are true I'd want the club to rip up the contracts of Mark and Jack McKay and not work with him ever again.

Unfortunately what he allegedly does seems like common practise. Parasites.

Just goes in many ways to confirm what scum some (if not most) football agents are.

Admitted to no interest in the player as a person at all but only saw him as a chance to make money. Deliberately fed bullshit to the press about interest from other clubs which he admits he made up in the hope of driving the price (and therefore his commission) up.

If what is in that article is accurate then he should be ashamed of himself and if I were our club I would have nothing to do with the man ever again.

No one should ever work with the tw*t again

It’s about time, that clubs stop paying agents and let the players pay them out of their own salary or transfer fee. Hopefully, a lot of this shit in pushing the price up or agents touting players for transfers, could stop.

Mother f***er

I truly hope that, in due course, a full & comprehensive investigation will be conducted into this Whole tragic, & extremely sad affair,,, & that the Law is firmly applied accordingly.


"Let justice be done though the heavens fall."

Hope the club do the right thing and distance themselves from this guy. His sons were probably in for a few quid too. Poor Emiliano I say.

Hopefully Willie mckay's sons are reading this page if so tell your self absorbed parasite of a father never to come near our club again? Oh, and you 2 and the other parasitic brother can "do One" too.

For goodness sake this is obviously fake. Its even dated "Friday 31st January 2019" when its actually Thursday!

Also, the rumours of this deal taking place were long before Christmas, not after the 6th January.

I'm not saying that McKay clearly wanted to make money from the deal - its what agents do. But I can't believe that anyone of his intelligence and experience is going to write that in an email to a player, even if he's thinking this in private!

I'm pretty sure you've all been had here by a disgruntled person looking for publicity.

Last edited by bluebird58 on Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

he also 'represented' ross mccormack, by which i mean move him from club to club to make as much money from him as possible.

David Henderson is a c**t too subbing his work out and making dollar on top no doubt. Awful

Hopefully Willie mckay's sons are reading this page if so tell your self absorbed parasite of a father never to come near our club again? Oh, and you 2 and the other parasitic brother can "do One" too.

If this article is true and confirmed, then this guy and his sons are disgusting individuals. I've had a bad feeling right from the start about this greedy c**t.

There is an argument that McKay was just being honest with Sala? Every single agent is in business to make money and WM seems no different.

However, I agree that far too much money is paid to agents for the actual work they do and they have too much influence in professional football as well. There was an attempt to regulate agents about 10 years ago but I believe it fell foul of a court ruling.

When you think that £41m of Paul Pogba's £89m transfer fee from Juventus to Man United was paid to the agent, then I think we all know something has to be done.

He sounds like a prick of the highest order

Leaves a sickening feeling about the whole thing and seems to be putting David Henderson in the frame .

It’s about time, that clubs stop paying agents and let the players pay them out of their own salary or transfer fee. Hopefully, a lot of this shit in pushing the price up or agents touting players for transfers, could stop.

It used to work that way and that's why agents were known as Mr. 15% back in the day. It is an obvious conflict of interests when an agent is working for both the club and player. Really as an employee of the Club we should have insisted he take a commercial flight. Unfortunately McKay had the real power which led to this tragic ending.

If players want agents they should pay for them and the club has to decide how they travel once they have signed to protect their investment.

I think if you are organising travel, you have a duty of care to use a recognised firm, otherwise, you carry the responsibility.

For example, if the supporters club needs to arrange travel to the Emirates for a game at Arsenal and they give the responsibility to Edwards coaches, then they have done all they can and should not be responsible for any problems.

If on the other hand, if they rung a bloke who can drive a coach and is fairly experienced, he, later on, decides to pass the job on to his mate a plumber who drives the odd coach on occasions, and there is a problem then I feel the supporters club would be responsible at least partly.

That's all assuming Henderson isn't a fully licenced airline, in which case his firm may be responsable?

Either way, it's a terrible situation and so clearly unavoidable, a young man in his prime has almost certainly lost his life because of it.

Would thought kerpliw profile considering what's happened? But then he's typical of agents money orientated quite often at expense of players interests

The Daily Mail is an awful attempt at a newspaper and site, its numbers are dropping and this is sensationalism beyond belief. Complete CRAP

The bit that is really revealing (though not surprising) - they create a false interest in a player to pump up the price, so they get more commission - even though Cardiff city are effectively the client.

Thinking of this - it brings back memories of Malky / Moody and the alleged off shore arrangement they via their wives company. Whether that's true or not I dont know - but the industry from Sepp Blatter at the top all the way down is bent and it's mainly down to there being seemingly no control / monitoring of the money. Deals done in Switzerland or Monaco (where McKay lives) for example are protected from the prying eyes of HMRC or even UEFA for that matter.

#backhanders

So Henderson was paid to take the flight and subbed it out to a ‘rusty’ Ibbotson.... sorry but he’s a cretinous asshole...

Both Henderson and McKay need to answer for this in a court, Cardiff need to wash their hands of the McKay family, get the boys off the books

Makes my blood boil

The Daily Mail is an awful attempt at a newspaper and site, its numbers are dropping and this is sensationalism beyond belief. Complete CRAP

the French paper that ...leaked ….this email have got loads wrong this last few weeks going back to when it was just a rumour..the mail seems to pick up everything they write.

The Daily Mail is an awful attempt at a newspaper and site, its numbers are dropping and this is sensationalism beyond belief. Complete CRAP

the French paper that ...leaked ….this email have got loads wrong this last few weeks going back to when it was just a rumour..the mail seems to pick up everything they write.

Wouldn’t surprise me if Henderson realised just how dangerous this flight was and either him or McKay have put Ibbotson up to it at the last minute knowing he would do it due to his ‘financial’ situation. If it turns out to be true they should have the book thrown at them in the football world and through the courts

Majority of agents are scum of the earth not all as a lot are players parents etc but 80% are the scum of the industry, this prick McKay being up there with the top of the scumbags. Unfortunately majority of footballers are abit dim so need these scumbags to broker deals.

I think if you are organising travel, you have a duty of care to use a recognised firm, otherwise, you carry the responsibility.

For example, if the supporters club needs to arrange travel to the Emirates for a game at Arsenal and they give the responsibility to Edwards coaches, then they have done all they can and should not be responsible for any problems.

If on the other hand, if they rung a bloke who can drive a coach and is fairly experienced, he, later on, decides to pass the job on to his mate a plumber who drives the odd coach on occasions, and there is a problem then I feel the supporters club would be responsible at least partly.

That's all assuming Henderson isn't a fully licenced airline, in which case his firm may be responsible?

Either way, it's a terrible situation and so clearly avoidable, a young man in his prime has almost certainly lost his life because of it.

Sorry above should have said avoidable.

Im not one for sentiment. But if anything good can come out of this tragedy, i hope a set of new rules regarding agents is something we can hope for. Football is ruined by corruption from the top, and these bastards lurking behind the scenes.

For goodness sake this is obviously fake. Its even dated "Friday 31st January 2019" when its actually Thursday!

Also, the rumours of this deal taking place were long before Christmas, not after the 6th January.

I'm not saying that McKay clearly wanted to make money from the deal - its what agents do. But I can't believe that anyone of his intelligence and experience is going to write that in an email to a player, even if he's thinking this in private!

I'm pretty sure you've all been had here by a disgruntled person looking for publicity.

If it's not true than I'm sure the newspaper will be hearing from the agent's lawyers.