Proof That Some Footballers Have Too Much Money…

Say what you like about the I-League, but seems everyone in India is determined to hang on to their best players. Brazilian attacker Jose Ramirez Barreto, who plays for Kolkata club Mohun Bagan, was arrested by the authorities last month while trying to fly home to Port Alegre, Brazil for a vacation with his family.

His crime? Carrying “excess foreign exchange” in the form of $20,500 undeclared cash. Barretto was bailed pretty quickly so he didn’t spend long behind bars, but the authorities did confiscate his passport. Which made traveling to Brazil a bit difficult.

After a month of legal proceedings and prayer Barreto now has his passport back and has been allowed to leave India. But he’s had to put up a bond of 10,00 Rupees and also furnish a bank guarantee of of 1.5 million Rupees to prove he’s returning.

Not sure why Barreto was carrying $20,500 in cash, or what sort of trousers he was wearing that had the pockets to accommodate such a sum. But while Barreto was arrested within the letter of the law, detaining the highest paid foreign footballer in the I-League for carrying too much money seems like an odd thing for the Indian authorities to do. Do you think the same thing will happen to David Beckham next time he tries to fly out of LAX?

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Category: World Football