Former Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho has been threatened with jail again, just a year after he and his brother were arrested and imprisoned in Paraguay after travelling to the country using fake travel documents.
This time he has become embroiled in a legal battle with former girlfriend Priscilla Coelho, and has been ordered by a court to settle his debts with her by 1 December. Failure to do so can lead to his assets being seized, and potentially a prison sentence.
It is reported that officials have handed Ronaldinho with a court summon, formally notifying him about the maintenance payment deadline of 11 November. Several attempts to track him down had failed because his whereabouts were unknown.
In May 2018, Ronaldinho was forced to refute claims of being about to marry Priscilla and another woman, Beatriz Souza at the same time. He trashed the rumours as lies.
A year later it emerged that Coelho, who began dating Ronaldinho when he was playing for Brazilian club Atlético Mineiro, had been demanding money from him, and had been awarded maintenance payments of GBP 12,500 following arbitration as his common law wife.
That decision could be appealed while the first payments were made. However, having so far defaulted on them, the potential legal consequences he faces are mounting up.
His latest brush with the law comes barely a year after he finally escaped from Paraguayan justice.
In March last year, Ronaldinho and his brother flew to Paraguay to take part in a charity event and to promote a book. For reasons that have never been made clear, they tried to enter the country with falsified passports claiming they were naturalised citizens of Paraguay.
They spent a month in jail before being placed under house arrest in a luxury hotel in Asuncíon, the Paraguayan capital.
The pair was finally released at the end of August, after pleading guilty to using forged documents. They were given a suspended prison sentence, a criminal record and ordered to pay a total o GBP 153,000 in compensation – GBP 68,000 by the player and the erst by his brother, who also has to report to a Brazilian judge on a periodic basis.