Madrid sues paper over Ronaldo allegations

MADRID — Real Madrid said on Thursday it had filed a lawsuit against a Portuguese newspaper that claimed the Spanish giant pushed Cristiano Ronaldo to hush up an alleged rape case.

Real has taken legal action against Correio da Manha after the paper on Wednesday reported that the club “pressured Ronaldo to sign” a nondisclosure agreement and pay compensation to his accuser, Kathryn Mayorga.

“Real Madrid has absolutely no knowledge of any of the information that the newspaper published with regard to the player Cristiano Ronaldo, and therefore the club could not have taken action on a matter of which it had no knowledge,” the club said in a statement.

Ronaldo, 33, who left Madrid over the summer to join Italian champion Juventus in a deal worth 100 million euros ($116 million), has been in turmoil since a case involving rape allegations against him, dating back to 2009, was reopened by Las Vegas police last week.

The case was originally closed after Ronaldo signed a confidentiality agreement in 2010 with Mayorga, a former model now aged 34, who received a payoff in return for her silence.

Mayorga alleged that she had been raped on June 13, 2009, just days after Ronaldo had joined Madrid from Manchester United.

The Portuguese newspaper reported that Real, wishing to avoid a scandal, pressed Ronaldo to pay compensation to Mayorga to hush up the affair.

Ronaldo’s lawyer insisted on Wednesday the player did not rape the woman in a Las Vegas hotel and that their sexual encounter was “completely consensual”.

“Once again, for the avoidance of doubt, Cristiano Ronaldo’s position has always been, and continues to be, that what happened in 2009 in Las Vegas was completely consensual,” lawyer Peter Christiansen said in a statement.

Ronaldo freely admits signing the non-disclosure agreement but his lawyer insisted he simply wished to put an end to the allegations.

Christiansen also said that documents reproduced by media outlets in recent days purportedly quoting the player and including details of the non-disclosure accord involving a payment of $375,000 to his accuser were “pure invention”.

Der Spiegel, the German magazine which published the story, released a statement which said, in part: “Our story is carefully researched. We have hundreds of documents from different sources that substantiate our reporting.”