Professional Football Association chief executive Gordon Taylor and Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers have settled their libel battle.
The settlement comes just a few days after Justice Tugendhat rejected an application by Associated Newspapers for the claim to be struck out because Taylor had no real prospect of succeeding in the claim, or alternatively because his case was an abuse of process as it failed to show that he had suffered a real and substantial tort.
The decision was handed down on October 11, and the case was to have gone to trial, with a jury, yesterday.
Taylor had sued over an article which appeared in the Daily Mail on 13 March last year under the headline “McGuire’s exit rocks the players’ union”.
The report said Taylor had publicly admonished McGuire in front of other PFA staff in a “petty dispute” over a legal bill.
Taylor claimed that it bore the defamatory meaning that he acted in a petulant and wholly unreasonable manner by rebuking McGuire in front of PFA staff members.
Associated Newspapers, the newspaper’s publisher, denied that the words were defamatory, and in addition pleaded justification.
An Associated Newspapers’ spokesman confirmed that a settlement had been reached, but refused to give any further details.
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