Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
To try & cover themselves people could precede their comments with 'In my opinion', though personally I wouldn't risk it myself as the FA & today's footballers (and indeed doctors) have a lot more money than the average person.
|
Nope.
The honest opinion defence fails if you can’t prove that it is your genuine, honest opinion, reasonably held (and that means the contentious opinion, when it was published, must have indicated some reasons why that opinion is held), or if you can’t point to facts that back that opinion up. It’s designed to protect newspaper op-ed writers, not internet trolls.
That said, as a footballer you’re never going to win a libel action against a fan who accuses you of being a donkey on an internet forum because libel has to damage a reputation. That sort of barracking is so commonplace in football fandom that nobody could claim that any one instance of it it made any difference to a footballer’s reputation.