Website Ordered to Pay Soccer Players for Orgy Allegation

A Spanish website and TV channel have been sentenced to pay 600,000 Euros to five players of the soccer team FC Barcelona for publishing and broadcasting a piece of news saying that they participated in a sex orgy. The judge considered that there was no evidence of the truthfulness of the information, nor the opposite, but emphasized that media are forced always to prove the facts and in this case they did not. The players sued both media outlets for publishing that they were in a sexual orgy in a room of a hotel in Madrid the day before a match. The judge emphasized that both media had not brought any evidence to the trial, not even an invoice from the hotel.

The website Micanoa.com must pay 20,000 Euros to each player while the TV station Telemadrid must compensate each of them with 100,000 Euros. The amount difference is due to the reach that each media has, according to the judge. To his mind, TV’s reach is much bigger. I have my doubts. While Telemadrid is a regional channel, Micanoa.com, a modest but well known news site, spread out the news among many people.