Tuesday 22 January 2019 17:47, UK
Cardiff City chief executive Ken Choo says the Premier League club are "praying" for positive news on missing striker Emiliano Sala.
French authorities have confirmed Sala was on board an aircraft which went missing near the Channel Islands on Monday evening.
Local air traffic control said the aircraft was travelling from Nantes in western France to Cardiff when it disappeared from radar off the coast of the island of Guernsey.
A search and rescue operation was launched that evening and carried on until 2am on Tuesday, before being called off and resumed at 8am.
Choo says the incident has shocked everybody connected with Cardiff.
"We called off training today because nobody is in the right frame of mind," said Choo. "Everybody is praying for Emiliano.
"Everybody is in shock at this point in time, including myself."
Choo added: "Everybody is having an emotional crisis now to hear this news. At this point I have to pull everybody together to give them support to get through this.
"I hope we can come out stronger."
Sala became the most expensive player in Cardiff's history when he joined on a three-and-a-half-year deal on Saturday.
The 28-year-old described his move to Wales as "special", and Choo says the player was "happy" to join the club.
"I met Emiliano on Friday and he is such a great person," said Choo. "He was so happy to join Cardiff City.
"You can see from his face that he was so happy to be here and so ready to start. Words cannot describe the look on his face when he met us and we took him around the grounds.
"He was absolutely ready to give it a go. We knew him then and we really feel sad to hear of this news because we met such a great person."
Choo says Cardiff are in contact with the French authorities as the search continues.
"We are waiting for them to inform us," he said: "We are trying to communicate with them, and trying to communicate through the player's agent to the family.
"We are very concerned and we would like to reach out to the family because it is a very tough time for the family.
"At this point in time we just want to know if he is okay and the pilot is okay. His close friends and family - that is the most important thing at this point in time."
