Emiliano Sala: EFL lifts Cardiff City transfer embargo
- Published
Emiliano Sala had just been signed up to play for Cardiff City when he died in the plane crash
The English Football League has lifted the transfer embargo on Championship strugglers Cardiff City.
The move follows Cardiff paying the first instalment of the £15m transfer fee for striker Emiliano Sala, who died in a plane crash en route to joining the club in January 2019.
The Bluebirds are no longer on the EFL's list of embargoed clubs.
Global governing body Fifa has yet to confirm whether its separate embargo has also been lifted.
Fifa imposed a transfer embargo for three transfers windows following Cardiff's refusal to pay the first instalment of the fee they had agreed for Argentine striker Sala.
Cardiff had insisted Sala was not officially registered as their player.
They lost their appeal against that ruling by Fifa at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne in 2022.
Legal discussions are still continuing with the club appealing to a Swiss Federal Court.
Following the CAS ruling, Cardiff received an invoice from Nantes for the first instalment of £5.3m of the fee.
BBC Sport Wales has learned Cardiff have this week paid a sum of approximately £7m to meet that demand and to cover interest.
The lifting of the EFL embargo is the first step in manager Mark Hudson being able to operate in the current January transfer window.
Cardiff are currently two places and two points above the Championship's relegation zone, and they are the lowest scorers in the division.
When the club first announced they were under an embargo, chairman Mehmet Dalman said Hudson had been told to "get his targets in place".
The transfer window closes on Tuesday, 31 January at 23:00 GMT.
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