Former Liverpool and Southampton goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar has been ordered to pay more than �1m in legal costs after his libel action against The Sun.

Mr Grobbelaar had been awarded �85,000 after claiming the newspaper had libelled him.

But this verdict was quashed and the damages stripped away in January last year by the Court of Appeal.

Mr Grobbelaar took that case to the House of Lords which reinstated the jury verdict - but slashed his damages to just �1.

The Law Lords who heard the case said although it had been proved that Mr Grobbelaar had accepted bribes, The Sun had failed to show 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 behave.

On Tuesday, the House of Lords ordered him to pay The Sun two-thirds of its legal costs for the eight-year action.

Daniel Taylor, company solicitor for The Sun's parent company 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."