90min

Ronaldinho Facing 6 Months in Prison Over Fake Passport Use

By Tom Gott

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​It's been a rough few weeks for Ronaldinho. After getting caught using a fake Paraguayan passport which he didn't even need anyway, he got himself locked in prison, and it appears he might not be getting out any time soon.

Both Ronaldinho and his brother were caught by Paraguayan border officials trying to use fake passports to enter the country, and he has spent over two weeks in custody as a result.

According to ​The Sun, Ronaldinho launched an appeal against his jail time, pleading to be put under house arrest instead, but the judge wasn't having any of it.

Not only did he reject the appeal, but the judge also warned Ronaldinho that he could spend up to six months in jail while the prosecution finds all their evidence.

Now, you might think that's a bad thing, but Ronaldinho is having a whale of a time in prison. He has taken up carpentry and recently starred in a prison football tournament, in which he won a 16kg piglet for leading his team to victory. Honestly.

He had hoped to get out as soon as possible, given it's his birthday on Saturday, but the fact that the woman accused of supplying the former ​Barcelona and ​AC Milan star with the passports failed to turn up to court really didn't help things.

Dalia López is alleged to have helped get Ronaldinho the fake passport, and she spent weeks on the run which saw her miss the hearing. However, she has since been arrested by Paraguayan police, so things might be able to get going again.

It's not looking good for López, whose house was recently found to ​contain up to 6,000 footballs with Ronaldinho's face printed on. Unfortunately, the picture of his face just so happened to be the same one which was used on the fake passport. Talk about a coincidence!

Unfortunately, Ronaldinho isn't going to have the kind of lavish birthday party which he is used to - unless you call picking at the scraps of a trophy piglet alongside a group of other prisoners 'lavish'.

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