INQUIRER Sports

LONDON - David Beckham won substantial compensation Tuesday for libel, after a British newspaper claimed he had "made a play" for a Hungarian model.

Express Group Newspapers apologized for the story published in April in the Daily Star, under the headline "Becks and the Blonde Beauty and Topless Model Claims She Was Chatted up by Footie Star."

They agreed to pay substantial but undisclosed damages, as well as his legal fees over the article, which claimed the football star "got close" with model Mariann Fogarasy after a recent AC Milan match in Hungary.

Beckham's lawyer Gerrard Tyrrell told the High Court in London that the allegations were defamatory and untrue. Beckham, 34, was not in court for the verdict.