Real Madrid lose long-running legal battle against French newspaper Le Monde

Real Madrid do not lose many battles in Europe but they lost one on Friday when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled against them in their long-running row with French newspaper Le Monde.

In a ruling with wide potential implications for press freedom, the Luxembourg-based court decided that financial damages awarded to Madrid by a Spanish court in 2014 for alleged defamation were “disproportionate” and risked “deterring the press”.

The Spanish court had ordered the newspaper to pay the club €390,000 in damages, with the journalist of the article ordered to pay €33,000.

With Le Monde refusing to pay, Madrid took the fight to the French courts, where a court in Paris initially backed the Spanish court’s ruling, only for an appeal court to reverse that decision, saying it breached the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, namely the freedoms of the press and expression.

Madrid appealed against this decision at France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, claiming the lower French court could not review the Spanish court’s decision, only implement it. This prompted the Court of Cassation to refer the matter to the ECJ.

Its verdict could not be clearer and it should bring this long row to a conclusion.

“The enforcement of a judgment ordering a journalist and a newspaper editor to pay compensation for damages must be refused to the extent that it infringes freedom of the press,” the ECJ said in a media release.

The dispute actually goes back to 2006, when Le Monde published an article titled “Dopage: le football apres le cyclisme” — or “Doping: first cycling, now football” — which claimed there were links between four Spanish clubs, including Madrid, and Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

The latter was at the centre of arguably the biggest doping scandal in the history of professional cycling before Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace a few years later, as a Spanish police investigation known as “Operation Puerto” implicated dozens of top riders and teams in a sophisticated blood-doping network.

Fuentes stood trial in Madrid in 2013 (Fabian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images)

However, while the investigation and subsequent criminal cases focused on cycling, Fuentes himself talked about having clients in a wide range of sports and it was that angle Le Monde pursued in December 2006.

The article, which is still available online, was accompanied by a cartoon of a cyclist wearing Spanish colours, surrounded by little footballers and syringes, and it named Barcelona and Madrid as two of the clubs that had an alleged connection with Fuentes.

Both Barcelona and Madrid have always denied doping and having any connection with the notorious doctor, who was found guilty of endangering public health in 2013, only to be cleared on appeal three years later, and have also strongly rejected any claims of doping.