AFP
NOS News•
The notorious lawsuit between the two British football women Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney has come to an end: Vardy must pay Rooney approximately 1.5 million pounds (1.7 million euros) for legal costs incurred.
Rooney (36), wife of former striker Wayne Rooney, was found in favor last summer after Vardy (40), wife of Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, filed a libel suit against her.
Rooney had announced on Instagram that Vardy had leaked information about her to tabloid The Sun. Vardy denied that, but was ultimately unable to convince the judge.
Trap set
A source previously told tabloid newspaper The Sun that a hearing on the charges would already be held, but that Rooney decided to double that amount from the £750,000 she had originally asked for to £1.5 million.
Court documents show that Vardy now has to pay 90 percent of the legal costs of a likely total of £ 1.67 million, of which £ 800,000 is due by mid-November. Rooney’s legal team has not yet made a final total of their costs, but it is expected that it would be.
Coleen Rooney set up a trap three years ago after she noticed someone was leaking information from her private Instagram account to The Sun.
Thinking Vardy was behind it, she concocted a ruse by blocking her Instagram post from everyone except one person. Then she spread fake stories to see if they got to The Sun. That soon turned out to be the case.
Widely covered in the media
Vardy denied any involvement, and sued Rooney in an attempt to polish her reputation. That failed: the court concluded that Vardy leaked details about Rooney to The Sun through her agent, and that the football woman knew about this and agreed.
The lawsuit was widely reported in British media, complete with live blogs and analyses. Rebekah Vardy went through painful cross-examinations for days, during which all kinds of details about her private life and that of Rooney were discussed.
