ETO'O'S DAUGHTER 'OPENS LEGAL CASE AGAINST HIM' FOR 'FAILING TO PAY MAINTENANCE'

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Former Barcelona and Inter Milan striker Samuel Eto’o has had a legal case opened against him by his own daughter, according to reports.

Eto’o fathered a daughter named Annie as the result of an affair in Italy with Anna Maria Barranca in 2002, but refused to be part of her life.

Following a DNA test, a judge recognised Eto’o as Annie’s biological father in 2015 and ordered the two-time Champions League winner to pay Barranca €10,000 (£8,600) in maintenance in order to drop a legal case against him.

Annie, now aged 21, has claimed Eto’o stopped paying the maintenance, and she has reported him to the Milan Prosecutor’s Office for ‘non-compliance with family support obligations’, as reported by Gazzetta dello Sport via Marca.

The document that Annie presented to the Prosecutor’s Office stated that Eto’o ‘would always evade his obligations as a father’ after she previously made a ‘last desperate attempt’ to contact him.

It went on to add: ‘Annie is not financially independent, she studies away from home and has the support of her mother, who barely manages to guarantee her a decent life.

‘She suffers from a fragile psychological situation, lacking a father figure, as well as as her condition of economic difficulty… The daughter’s cry of pain had no effect.’

Eto’o has a history of being involved in paternity lawsuits after the mother of another of his children, María Ángeles Pineda, demanded that he paid her €16,400 (£14,200) for child support back in 2018.

He was also ordered to pay a fee by a Spanish court to another daughter, Erika do Rosario Nieves, after being recognised as her father last year.

Eto’o enjoyed a glittering career in European football, famously starring for Barcelona and Inter Milan as they won the Champions League in 2006 and 2010 respectively.

He also had brief spells at Chelsea and Everton in the Premier League, before returning to Italy to play for Sampdoria and then moving to Turkey.

The 42-year-old finished his playing career in Qatar in 2019.