The French newspaper Le Monde and one of its reporters have been ordered to pay $743,000 in damages to Real Madrid over an article a Spanish court found to be defamatory.
The Madrid court found Le Monde and journalist Stephane Mandard should pay the club and its head of medical services Dr Alfonso del Corral for intimating doping practices at the Spanish giants.
The court found the reporter had based his article on one single source of dubious credibility which never corroborated the existence of controversial documents to which he made reference in his piece.
Real complained that Le Monde had appeared to establish a link between them and Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, implicated in the Operation Puerto cycling blood doping scandal.
In the article published on December 8, 2006, Le Monde said the Puerto scandal implicated four Spanish football clubs, including Real and Barcelona.
Both vehemently denied the claim.
A Barcelona court found in January last year that Le Monde and Mandard should pay damages to the Catalan club for the same article.
