A Spanish radio station has reportedly agreed to pay a sizeable settlement to FC Barcelona after it was sued for defamation by the club.
The station, Cadena COPE, alleged in March 2011 that the Barcelona team had been involved in a doping scandal. It recently admitted that the allegations were not true, were based on an unverified source and were actually comments falsely attributed to Barca’s rivals, Real Madrid.
However, this admission only came after the football club’s managers sued Cadena COPE, initially seeking more than 6 million Euros in damages and interest.
The case is now understood to have been settled, with FC Barcelona agreeing to accept a defamation settlement of €200,000, far less than their initial claim. It is not known whether the radio station had professional indemnity insurance in place for defamation allegations, although it is likely.
Explaining why the club had agreed to settle for this lower amount, Barca spokesperson Toni Freixa said in a news conference:
“We have come to the end, which is when the sued party surrenders. If we carried on it would only be for the money and our honour has no price. For this reason, we will give it to a good cause,”