A Madrid court has certified Samuel Eto’o, a former Cameroonian and Barcelona footballer, as the father of a 22-year-old lady.
Eto’o, the current president of the Cameroon Football Association, has never admitted to being Erika Do Rosario Nieves’ father and has refused to appear in court in Madrid.
However, on Thursday, February 17, Court Number 83 in Madrid issued a decision, bringing to a close a judicial process started by the woman’s mother in 2018.
Adileusa, the mother of the young woman, is alleged to have met Eto’o in a bar in Madrid in 1997, when he was playing for Leganes, a team headquartered near Madrid.
Eto’o spent the 1997/98 season on loan with Leganes from Real Madrid, where he scored four goals in 30 games before briefly breaking into Real Madrid’s first-team squad.
According to the lawsuit, the woman became pregnant in February 1998 as a result of the relationship that developed.
Eto’o “told her that he would act appropriately with respect to the common kid, albeit he preferred that she not give birth to the child,” according to the lawsuit.
“She sought to interact with the prospective father (Eto’o) during the pregnancy, but he would not answer her phone calls or respond to her emails,” the lawsuit continued.
Eto’o is said to have cut off all contact with Erika’s mother, who gave birth to her in Madrid’s Alarcon Foundation hospital in 1999.
The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by the child’s mother, who provided biological evidence to back up her claim that Erika was the former striker’s daughter.
Eto’o is believed to have had no contact with the court during the process and was not present when the judgement was made.
The court determined that Eto’o must now give the young woman a monthly stipend of €1,400, which is retroactive to the time the lawsuit was filed.
Eto’o is largely regarded as one of Africa’s finest players of all time.
He scored 70 goals in four seasons with Real Mallorca before playing for Barcelona from 2004 to 2009, where he scored 130 goals in 199 games.
With Barcelona and Inter Milan, he also won two Champions League titles.
After that, he played for Chelsea, Everton, Sampdoria, Antalyaspor, and Konyaspor before concluding his career with Qatar SC in 2019.
