Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho, who plays for Spanish
Barcelona, has been ordered to increase his monthly child support
payments to US$14,000.
Brazilian state news agency on Wednesday said that Judge Antonio
Aurelio Duarte of Rio de Janeiro's Tribunal of Justice had made the
decision in December.
Ronhaldinho had been paying 4,700 dollars a month to support
Joao - the child he had with dancer Janaina Mendes - as well as
paying for bodyguards and a 70 square meter apartment in the Barra
da Tijuca neighborhood for both mother and child.
Courts ordered Ronaldinho to double his child support payments
in November. Ronaldinho did so, but then stopped paying the
bodyguards' salaries.
Mendes went back to courts immediately, and won a provisional 50
percent increase to the payments.
Judge Duarte has ordered an investigation into the player's
finances before setting a definitive child support figure.
In Brazil, child support payments are usually between 15 and 40
percent of the father's income.
(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)