Mail to apologise to football star for World Cup slur

Collyer Bristow has forced the Daily Mail newspaper to apologise to Italian footballer Marco Materazzi for its coverage of the France-Italy World Cup Final in 2006.

The Mail claimed that Italian player Marco Materazzi had used racist abuse during the match. This was alleged to have included Materazzi calling the mother of opposition player Zinedine Zidane, who is French-born of Algerian descent, “a terrorist whore”, provoking Zidane to headbutt Materazzi.

Partner Steven Heffer led the team acting for Materazzi. Heffer said: “The Daily Mail now accepts that the allegations are wholly untrue and there is no question of Marco Materazzi having said anything of a racist nature to Zidane.”

A five-day trial had been listed to commence in the High Court on 20 October 2008, however only a few days before the trial was due to start the Daily Mail capitulated.

The Daily Mail will publicly apologise to Marco Materazzi in the High Court on Monday 3 November.

Proceedings were also issued on Materazzi’s behalf against The Sun and Daily Star newspapers, both of which have already published apologies to Marco Materazzi.