Tigana: Fayed was trying to break me

Jean Tigana, who last week won his High Court case against Mohamed Fayed, has accused the Fulham owner of "trying to break me".

Frenchman Tigana, Fulham manager from June 2000 to April 2003, was accused by Fayed of taking cuts on some of the transfers he oversaw during his time at the head of the west London team and encouraging the club to pay over the odds for players, including Steve Marlet and Edwin Van der Saar.

Tigana won £2.5million in damages and compensation last week after a judge rejected allegations he was a "crook" while the Fulham owner was criticised by the High Court judge for his "unreliable" evidence.

Tigana claimed today that Fayed tried to settle out of court just two days before the hearing.

"I knew I had done nothing wrong and I wanted that to be established.

"That's why I said no when Mohamed Fayed offered me a deal two days before the trial," Tigana told French sports newspaper L'Equipe.

"I had been dragged through the mud for two years and I wanted my name to be cleared.

"Even today, I don't understand the reasons which pushed this club which hadn't been in the Premier League for 32 years, that we built up over three years and which played in Europe for the first time, to act in this way against me.

"I only saw Fayed once during the trial. Everybody explained that he was the one who did everything during the transfers and he responded by calling them all liars and saying I was a crook.

"To have invested so much time and money [in pursuing the case], he must surely have been trying to break me."