Missing footballer Sala still 'alive on an island' - ex-girlfriend

The ex-girlfriend of missing Premier League footballer Emiliano Sala insists he is not dead - and could be alive on an island in the Channel Islands.

Sala and pilot David Ibbotson disappeared just over a week ago when the plane carrying them from Nantes, France to Cardiff dropped off the radar over Guernsey last Monday.

Some debris from the plane has been found and both men are presumed dead.

Sala was travelling to Wales to join Cardiff City, after signing a $29 million deal with his new club.

Berenice Schkair, Sala's ex-girlfriend, told Argentine media she believes he is still alive.

"I have hope he is going to turn up, that's he's alive. Where? On an island. I feel, as does his family, that he cannot have disappeared," she told Infobae.

Schkair also explained her earlier comments, suggesting the "football mafia" was responsible for Sala's death.

In a tweet, which has since been deleted, the 26-year-old model called for "an investigation into the football mafia".

"It was an impulse. I sensed there was something strange, dark. But I don't have information about anything," Schkair said.

"The only thing I felt was if a plane disappears off the face of the Earth, two people disappear and nobody wants to search for them and everything stays covered then it is something strange."