London, Nov 4 : Italian soccer star Marco Materazzi today accepted substantial undisclosed damages over Daily Mail articles which said that he has used vile racist abuse to French captain Zinedine Zidane.
As the world speculated about why French captain Zidane had felled Italian player Materazzi with a head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final, newspapers rushed to fill the void.
The Daily Mail was forced to pay “substantial” libel damages to the Italian star for alleging that it was “vile racist abuse” that had provoked Zidane to bring his final match in a France shirt to such an ignominious end.
