Free weekly Sport Magazine has agreed to pay former FA chairman Lord Triesman ‘substantial damages’after reporting that he was involved in ‘corruption”.
The settlement was revealed in a brief hearing at the High Court in London yesterday.
Triesman stepped down from his FA job in June this year after the Mail on Sunday published a story based on the transcript of secret tapes in which he alleged that football officials in Spain and Russia were planning to bribe referees.
The court heard that on 8 October Sport Magazine featured an article headed ‘Ups and Downs’which stated: ‘FA chairman Lord Triesman resigns after a newspaper article suggested he was involved in corruption regarding England’s 2018 World Cup bid”.
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The article was accompanied by a photograph of Triesman and also appeared online.
The court heard that Sport Magazine ‘did not check the accuracy of the article before publication”.
Triesman’s lawyer Melanie Hart, from Harbottle and Lewis, said: ‘The true position is that Lord Triesman has never been accused of being involved in corruption and he did not resign his post as chairman of the Football Association for any such reason. The allegation in the defendant’s article is therefore completely untrue.
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‘The defendant is here today to apologise to Lord Triesman and to withdraw its defamatory statement. It has also agreed to pay to him a substantial sum in damages together with his legal costs and has undertaken not to repeat the statement.”
Sport Magazine said that it ‘apologises for the distress and embarrassment caused to both Lord Triesman and his family”.
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