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)