Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock and club CEO Ken Choo joined mourners at the funeral of Emiliano Sala in his hometown in Argentina on Saturday.
The 28-year-old striker’s body was repatriated on Friday before it was returned to Progreso, about 350 miles from Buenos Aires, for the public vigil.
Warnock and Choo joined locals from the small town for a service in the gymnasium of Sala’s boyhood club, San Martin de Progreso.
They arrived wearing black suits with yellow daffodils pinned to their jackets as a tribute to Sala.
Cardiff’s players have also worn shirts bearing the flower in memory of Sala, who became the club’s record £15 million signing days before his death.
Sala’s mother and father were also present at the vigil.
His body will be cremated at a private service in the city of Santa Fe on Saturday afternoon local time.
Before the funeral, San Martin de Progreso posted a tribute to Facebook which said: “We are waiting for you… like the first day you left but this time to stay with us forever. You went and you are an example for everyone.”
He died on January 21 when the plane he was travelling in crashed in the English Channel after he had visited players at his former French club, Nantes.
His body was pulled from the wreckage on February 7 but the British pilot, David Ibbotson, 59, from Lincolnshire, has not been found.
A fundraising campaign to restart the search for the pilot has raised more than £240,000.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain earlier this week, his daughter Danielle said the family would not give up hope.
“If you’ve got hope then you shouldn’t give up,” she said. “He wouldn’t stop searching for me.”
She added: “We still hope and pray and hope everyone keeps my dad in their prayers.”
The plane remains on the seabed off the coast of Guernsey in the English channel.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here