Court hands out prison sentence to Chilavert

Former Paraguay goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert has been handed a six-month suspended prison sentence by a Paris court for faking documents in his dealings with Ligue 1 club Racing Strasbourg. The sentence, under which Chilavert, 39, also has to pay €10,000 in damages and interest to the club and one symbolic euro to its former chairman Patrick Proisy, was handed down by the Paris Correctional Court.

Chilavert, Paraguay's most emblematic player and an icon in Latin America, was accused of producing false documents related to his physical condition when he sought to return to the Ligue 1 side after playing in the 2002 World Cup, the source said. Strasbourg considered his fitness inadequate and had decided to sack him when Chilavert produced a document that seemed to show that Strasbourg had promised him €3.6 million if he were ditched. Proisy filed a complaint for forgery. Chilavert was condemned for using falsified documents but not for forgery as two separate examinations were unable to agree on whether Chilavert was guilty of faking the document himself.