Football agent Saif Alrubie has lost his latest court battle with former Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia and has been ordered to pay her £150,000 in costs.
Alrubie had made a High Court claim for damages of £2,182,782 against Granovskaia over the transfer of Kurt Zouma from Chelsea to West Ham United.
He dropped a case against Chelsea for £2,900,637.3612 last October, but the club offered to go to Football Association arbitration to clarify whether or not they are liable.
A judge has now ruled the case be referred to FA arbitration, with Alrubie ordered to pay Granovskaia’s court costs of £150,000, plus VAT, within 14 days.
A spokesperson for Granovskaia said: “We welcome today’s High Court ruling in Ms Granovskaia’s favour. Our position has always been that Mr Rubie’s claim is baseless, but that if he wanted to pursue his unmeritorious claim, he should have done so in the proper forum, which the Court has confirmed is Rule K arbitration.”
Alrubie was last year found not guilty at Southwark Crown Court of malicious communications sent to Granovskaia and is now seeking damages from her for the commission he believes he is owed over Zouma’s transfer to West Ham in August 2021.
A spokesperson for Alrubie said: “Whilst we would have preferred our claim to be heard in open court, we’re satisfied that the High Court judge confirmed that Marina Granovskaia is answerable in these proceedings in her own right. We look forward to pursuing our action for justice via the Rule K arbitration process.”
At a High Court hearing in London last month, Granovskaia’s barrister Kendrah Potts said that “the evidence filed by Mr Alrubie in response to the application lays bare his primary motivation, which appears to be to achieve some form of vindication or retribution because he blames Ms Granovskaia for the criminal charge against him. The High Court is not a place for vendettas of that nature.”
Ms Potts added that “parallel High Court proceedings will waste time, money and court resources” and said that “Mr Alrubie’s deliberate efforts to avoid the binding agreement to arbitrate the breach of contract claim in order to have a public forum to seek retribution against CFC and/or Ms Granovskaia should not be entertained.”
