Dolce And Gabbana To Pay Maradona 70K EUR Compensation

Story ByAlex CopeSub EditorJoseph GolderAgencyGolder’s News And Sport 

Dolce and Gabbana have been ordered to pay footballing icon Diego Maradona 70,000 EUR in compensation for having used his name on a t-shirt on a catwalk.

The Italian fashion firm have been ordered to pay Maradona 70,000 EUR (58,971 GBP) in compensation by a Milan court as well as cover the 13,000 EUR (10,951 GBP) the former Napoli player has spent on legal proceedings in the case.

Picture Credit: Golders

The dispute began in 2016 at a Dolce and Gabbana catwalk in Naples, Italy where a blonde model was snapped wearing a sky blue Napoli-style t-shirt with Maradona’s name and famous number 10 on the back.

Maradona’s lawyer Ulisse Corea said the catwalk was organised “without Maradona’s consent and without them having contacted him. For the lawyers defending Dolce and Gabbana it was a homage to Naples and there was something of that, but it was also a catwalk of a commercial character.

Picture Credit: Golders

“The only person who can use that name, just like the image of someone so famous to obtain profit, is him.”

Judge Paola Gandolfi found that “external businesspeople cannot appropriate” Maradona’s “myth” without “the consent of the legitimate owner”.

Maradona, whose legal team had asked for 1 million EUR (842,450 GBP) in compensation, welcomed the decision on social media, writing: “They just let me know from Italy that the case with Dolce and Gabbana for using my name without my permission just finished.

“Homages are fantastic but I think they had to ask my permission to use my surname in their catwalk. A blow struck for justice.”

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