FORMER soccer star Bruce Grobbelaar was today ordered to pay over £1 million in legal costs for his ill-fated libel action against The Sun newspaper.

The costs decision by the House of Lords is the final humiliation for the former Liverpool goalkeeper who spent eight years trying to clear his name of allegations that he took bribes to fix matches.

A High Court jury awarded him £85,000 damages in August 1999 after finding that the newspaper had libelled him in articles that contained the allegations.

This verdict was quashed and the damages award stripped away in January last year by the Court of Appeal which found there had been a "miscarriage of justice".

Mr Grobbelaar took his case to the House of Lords, who reinstated the jury verdict but slashed the damages to just £1.

The Law Lords who heard the case said that although it had been proved that Mr Grobbelaar had accepted bribes, the newspaper had failed to show that he had actually let in goals to fix matches.

But they said in a ruling last month that he had acted in a way in which no decent or honest footballer would act and which any right-thinking person would condemn.

Today the House of Lords ordered him to pay The Sun two-thirds of its legal costs of the marathon action.

Daniel Taylor, company solicitor for News International, said: "He now faces having to pay well over a million pounds in costs.

"By awarding costs in favour of The Sun, the House of Lords has sent a clear message to litigants who bring libel actions on a false basis that they may face a huge bill at the end of the action, as well as having their reputations destroyed."