Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis can continue a libel claim against a Greek football rival at the High Court, a judge has ruled.
Mr Marinakis, who also owns Greek side Olympiacos, sued Irini Karipidis, the owner of Super League rivals Aris, over several “false” allegations including that he had conducted match-fixing and was involved in a high-profile drug trafficking case in Greece.
Barristers for the shipping magnate told a hearing in October that the £2.1 million claim should be allowed to continue in an English court and that the allegations amounted to a “smear campaign”.
Lawyers for Ms Karipidis said that an English court “is not clearly the most appropriate place” for the claim, which “lacks merit”.
In a judgment on Friday, Richard Spearman KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, said: “If the claimant’s pleaded case succeeds, the level of general damages to which he would, on the face of it, be entitled is such that, from the perspective of compensating for harm to his reputation alone, the claim seems well worth bringing, to say nothing of compensation for distress or the element of vindication which is typically of significance in claims for defamation.”