A court in Paris has ruled that a journalist was within his rights to describe Franck Ribéry as “scum” in a book about French football published in 2013.

In 2013, RMC Sport’s Daniel Riolo published his book Racaille Football Club (Scum Football Club) which lifted the lid on the seedy side of the French game. Four years earlier, Ribéry and his team-mate Karim Benzema had been accused of having sex with an underage prostitute and were eventually cleared.

But the investigations interfered with France’s preparation for the World Cup in 2010 and Raymond Domenech’s team were knocked out in the group stages after Nicolas Anelka had been sent home following a bust-up with the coach.

In his book, Riolo accused Ribéry of being one of the main perpetrators of the discontent within the squad and used several derogatory words to describe him, including “scarface”, “scum” and “gangster”. The Bayern forward, who is currently out injured, sued the journalist and his publisher Hugo & Cie for damages but a judge ruled this week that the terms had been used “objectively” and that the lawsuit was “reckless”.

Ribéry was subsequently ordered to pay a total of €5,000 to Riolo and his publisher, with the judge citing Roselyne Bachelot, the French sports minister, who during the 2010 World Cup referred to some of the French team as “gangsters”.

The 32-year-old’s lawyer Carlo Alberto Brusa said he would appeal against the decision. “My client is outraged that the 17th chamber of the court has described this as an abuse of procedure as he was simply exercising judicial means available to him to request that his fundamental rights are respected.”