Missing plane Sala was travelling on belonged to football agent Willie McKay

According to The Times, the aircraft is 'registered to a Suffolk holding company called Southern Aircraft Consultancy but is understood to be owned by the Scottish agent'.

Sala, 28, is not represented by McKay but was understood to be involved in brokering the deal. He did not provide a comment to The Times.

The striker signed for the Welsh side in a £15million record transfer on Saturday and was flying to South Wales on Monday evening to join up with his new team-mates.

But the plane lost contact around 8.30pm and there has been no sign of it since.

Search and rescue operations continue to take place over the English Channel.

The plane, with registration number N264DB, is a Piper PA-46 Malibu, single-engine, six-seater aircraft.

But it was just Sala and the pilot making the journey from France.

The Sun exclusively revealed that the plane failed to take off properly four times on Monday evening before finally setting off at 7.15pm.

Sala reportedly sent WhatsApp voice messages to friends while in the air saying he was scared the plane may "fall apart".

He is then understood to have sent sent another message, saying: "If you do not have any more news from in an hour and a half, I don’t know if they need to send someone to find me… I am getting scared!"

Bluebirds chairman Mehmet Dalman said they were "still praying" for positive news and revealed Sala organised the flight himself rather than the club, which experts described as "risky".

He said: "I can say to you categorically that the plane had nothing to do with Cardiff City.

"We were not involved in booking the plane. In fact, we are trying to ascertain ourselves exactly what did happen. The club is looking into the matter and we want to find answers too.

"We spoke to the player and asked him if he wanted us to make arrangements for his flight which, quite frankly, would have been commercial. I can’t tell you who arranged the flight because I don’t know at this stage — but it certainly wasn’t Cardiff City."

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