FORMER Saints star Bruce Grobbelaar has won a hollow victory in his marathon battle to clear his name over match-fixing allegations.
A majority of the Law Lords overturned the appeal court's decision to quash a libel verdict in his favour.
But they were unanimous in condemning the former goalkeeper, slashing his £85,000 damages award to just £1 and leaving his reputation in tatters.
Four out of five Law Lords reinstated the High Court jury's verdict that the Sun newspaper had libelled him by claiming he took "bungs" for match fixing.
But they ruled that it had been proved that Grobbelaar had accepted bribes.
The newspaper only failed to show that he had actually let in goals to fix matches and this was why the jury had found in his favour, the Law Lords decided.
Lord Bingham said of Grobbelaar: "Until November 9 1994 when the newspaper published its first articles about him, the appellant's public reputation was unblemished.
"But he had in fact acted in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act and in a way which could, if not exposed and stamped on, undermine the integrity of a game which earns the loyalty and support of millions.
"Even if the newspaper had published no more than what, on my interpretation of the jury's verdict, it was entitled to have published, the appellant would have been shown to have acted in a way which any right-thinking person would unequivocally condemn.
"It would be an affront to justice if a court of law were to award substantial damages to a man shown to have acted in such flagrant breach of his legal and moral obligations."
The former Zimbabwean international took his case to the House of Lords after the appeal judges dramatically overturned the jury's verdict, stripped him of his £85,000 damages and left him facing financial ruin from a legal costs bill estimated at around £1m.
The libel action was the third time that Grobbelaar had declared his innocence of match-fixing to a jury after the newspaper published a series of damning articles about him in November 1994.
It followed two trials at Winchester in 1997. The first ended in deadlock and the second resulted in Grobbelaar being cleared of conspiracy, along with ex-Wimbledon stars John Fashanu and Hans Segers, and businessman Richard Lim.
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