MADRID, Feb 25 — The Spanish Supreme Court yesterday ordered French daily newspaper Le Monde to pay football giants Real Madrid and Barcelona more than €300,000 (RM1.4 million) in damages for defamation.

The court upheld a judgment against the newspaper and journalist Stephane Mandard over a 2006 article about doping, which had earlier been confirmed on appeal.

Le Monde must pay Real Madrid €300,000 and Dr Alfonso del Corral, the director of the Real medical department, €30,000.

The newspaper was also ordered to pay Barcelona €15,000 in damages, reduced from the original €300,00 on a technicality, as the club had forgotten to include the original awarded total in the appeal documents.

The case concerned an article, published in December 2006 under the headline “Doping: Football after cycling”.

It claimed a link between Real Madrid, Barcelona, Real Betis and Valencia and notorious Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who was sentenced to a year in prison and banned from practising medicine for four years in 2013 for providing doping products to cyclists in what was known as ‘Operation Puerto’.

The Supreme Court said the article was without doubt of general interest but was defamatory because Le Monde’s facts could not be proven to be true as the journalist had not provided enough evidence to back them up. — AFP