DUBAI // An Emirati football coach who had an illegitimate child with his Moldovan lover has been sentenced to a month in prison.
The Misdemeanours Court sentenced his lover to two months, as she was also convicted of overstaying her visa. She will be deported after completing her jail term. As the father is Emirati, the child will remain with the father.
The pair, who had been living together for the past five years since the child's birth, were arrested after the woman handed herself in to police over immigration offences.
Prosecutors said that the football coach, EO, 26, met the woman, OA, 29, in 2007 at a nightclub in Jumeirah and shortly afterwards invited her to move in with him and his family at his house in Al Qusais.
In July 2008 the woman gave birth to his child at the Dubai Hospital and the pair pretended to be married.
"[The football coach] told the hospital that we were married but that he had lost our marriage contract and would bring it later. They discharged us, but when we asked for a birth certificate for our son, they refused to give us one and ordered him [the coach] to go to Rashid hospital, which he never did," said the woman.
She continued living with the coach for the next five years, but recently decided she wanted to return to her home country. She could not do this because she was residing in the country illegally, had no passport and was unable to get another one.
She handed herself in to police hoping she would be deported, but the pair were then arrested when officers found out about her illegitimate child. According to prosecution records, the coach claimed he was planning to marry the woman.
salamir@thenational.ae
