I missed this a couple of weeks ago, partly because of the way the story was reported but Marco Materazzi won his court case against the Daily Mail for libel.

The case revolved around The Mail accusing Matrix of calling Zinedine Zidane the son of a terrorist whore during the World Cup final in 2006.

At the time I had some discussion with an Algerian friend of mine who said that Zidane should have killed Materazzi for that comment as this is the worst kind of insult you could direct at an Algerian.

It all came about from so-called lip reading experts who claimed to have deduced the insult from TV pictures. For a couple of days, the Press went mental. I think in part to seek some justification for Zidane’s amazing headbutt and subsequent dismissal.

So it turns out that Materazzi did not say anything of the sort, instead saying that he preferred Zidane’s sister to the French captain’s offer of his shirt, which Materazzi was pulling at a corner.

Of course, the Mail’s apology will not appear o such large headlines as their original libellous claim.