Mario Balotelli Rips Lazio Fans for Racist Abuse: 'Shame on You'
Jan 5, 2020
BRESCIA, ITALY - JANUARY 5 : Mario Balotelli of Brescia Calcio talk with the Referee Gianluca Manganiello ,during the Serie A match between Brescia Calcio FC and SS Lazio at Stadio Mario Rigamonti on January 5, 2020 in Brescia, Italy. (Photo by MB Media/Getty Images)
Mario Balotelli has hit out at certain Lazio fans after accusing them of racist abuse on Sunday. Balotelli's Brescia lost 2-1 at home to Lazio in Serie A, with the former Liverpool striker getting on the scoresheet.
However, the match needed to be stopped while an announcement was made calling for a halt to abusive chanting from the away end, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN).
The same report also detailed how "Brescia confirmed to ESPN that Balotelli asked the referee to stop the match due to racist chanting."
Afterwards, the 29-year-old took to Instagram to post the following message: "Lazio fans that were today at the stadium SHAME ON YOU!"
Lazio have since released a statement regarding Sunday's incidents, per Football Italia:
"As it has always done in the past, SS Lazio condemns the discriminatory behaviour from a tiny minority of fans during the match with Brescia. The club reiterates once again its condemnation of similar unjustified behaviour and confirms its intention to pursue legal action against those who are in effect betraying their sporting passion by seriously damaging the image of the club and the Biancocelesti team."
Balotelli experienced similar problems when Brescia were beaten 2-1 by Hellas Verona back in November. The ex-AC Milan star had to be talked into remaining on the pitch despite being subjected to racist chants from sections of the home support.
Mario Balotelli responded to the racist chants by kicking the ball into the stands.
His teammates and match officials convinced the striker to remain on the pitch. pic.twitter.com/vvzuY7oBHZ
The incident led to Verona playing their next home game with part of the stadium closed. The club also issued a ban to Luca Castellini, head of the ultras fan group, until 2030, per BBC Sport.
However, many are still waiting for direct action to be taken by the Italian top flight against those who engage in racism. The AP report outlined how no punishments have been meted out by the country's footballing authorities or lawmakers.
Racial abuse is a growing problem in Serie A, with league officials defending controversial artwork depicting apes used for its anti-racism campaign. In December, Tom Morgan and Mike McGrath of The Telegraph reported how every one of the division's 20 teams put signatures on an open letter to fans calling for an end to racial abuse.
Brescia's Mario Balotelli Subjected to Racist Abuse, Persuaded to Stay in Match
Nov 3, 2019
VERONA, ITALY - NOVEMBER 03: Mario Balotelli #45 of Brescia Calcio reacts to racist chants from Verona fans during the Serie A match between Hellas Verona and Brescia Calcio at Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi on November 3, 2019 in Verona, Italy. (Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
Mario Balotelli almost walked off the pitch in Brescia's 2-1 defeat to Hellas Verona on Sunday after being racially abused by supporters at the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi.
According to Goal, Balotelli was persuaded by his team-mates and Verona players to stay on the pitch after he received abuse from the stands.
After the striker decided to remain, the match was stopped by the referee and a statement was read out to the crowd over the public address system.
Upon receiving the abuse, the Italian picked up the ball and angrily kicked it into the stands.
Verona manager Ivan Juric denied that racist abuse took place. He told Sky Sport Italia (h/t Football-Italia):
"You can ask him, there was nothing there. I am disgusted by racist abuse and I will be the first to condemn it when it happens, but this was not it.
"They provoked him with jeers and sarcastic chants, but they were not racist. Anything else is a lie."
Balotelli went on to score in the 85th minute against Verona, but the goal proved to be only a consolation after Eddie Salcedo and Matteo Pessina had put the hosts in front.
Per Goal, the 29-year-old has been racially abused while playing for Inter Milan, AC Milan, Manchester City and Nice over the course of his career.
It is not the first time this season Verona have been involved in such incidents.
In September, the club denied fans had racially abused Milan midfielder Franck Kessie, per ESPN FC's Andrew Cesare:
Inter striker Romelu Lukaku was racially abused by Cagliari supporters in September.
Cagliari fans also abused Moise Kean while he was playing for Juventus in April. Balotelli backed Kean following the incident andwas criticalof Juve defender Leonardo Bonucci when Bonucci suggested his team-mate was "50-50" to blame.
Brescia Boss Says Sandro Tonali Drawing Interest from Manchester City, PSG, More
Oct 28, 2019
Brescia president Massimo Cellino has said that Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Atletico Madrid are among a host of top clubs interested in signing 19-year-old midfielder Sandro Tonali.
Cellino told Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Espana) that the Italy international is a wanted man, although he also made it clear he is keen to keep hold of the teenager:
"All the big Italian clubs are interested. Abroad there’s Atletico Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, but in my view, he'd be better off remaining as a protagonist with Brescia.
"The other day, his agent and his parents were telling me about this €50m evaluation. I replied that for me he is worth €300m, which means I don't want to sell. I have a dream. If Sandro accepts, I am ready to make a big financial sacrifice to extend his contract."
Tonali has come through the ranks at Brescia and helped the club win the Serie B title in 2018-19 and achieve promotion to Italy's top flight.
The teenager has started all eight of his side's league outings this season and scored his first Serie A goal in Saturday's 3-1 defeat at Sampdoria with a brilliant free-kick, as shown by Premier Sports (UK only):
Sandro Tonali with the goal of the day in #SerieA yesterday! 🔥
The teenager won his first cap for the Azzurri in October. He made his debut as a substitute in their 5-0 win over Liechtenstein in Euro 2020 qualifying in October:
The central midfielder has drawn comparisons with Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo and Daniele De Rossi and offered his thoughts on his similarities to those players after that match.
He told Rai Sport (h/tFootball Italia): "It's tough to pick one of those champions. Maybe a mix of all of them would be perfect! I guess there are similarities with Pirlo in a way, but I also put a lot of grit in there, so maybe more Gattuso."
Serie A side Fiorentina made an offer for Tonali in the summer transfer window but will not renew their interest in January. Director Daniele Prade told TGR Toscana (h/tFootball Italia) that Brescia would not want to sell their starlet midway through the season.
He said: "No, we won't try again in January. We'll be concentrating on sales rather than purchases. Besides that, why would Brescia want to sell Tonali mid-season?"
Yet Brescia look destined for a battle to keep hold of their talented teenager. He only turned 19 in May but has adapted well to life in Serie A and looks to have a big future ahead of him.
Cellino may be adamant he is not interested in selling but Manchester City and PSG are clubs with the financial power to make an offer he may find difficult to turn down.
The Unbreakable Bond That Brought Mario Balotelli Back to Brescia
Sep 4, 2019
BRESCIA, ITALY - AUGUST 19: President of Brescia Calcio Massimo Cellino and Mario Balotelli show the Brescia Calcio jersey during Brescia Calcio Unveils New Signing Mario Balotelli on August 19, 2019 in Brescia, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
It was the best season in Brescia's modern history, and Mario Balotelli had a pitch-side view.
In the summer of 2000, newly promoted Brescia pulled off a massive coup by securing the signature of 33-year-old Roberto Baggio, who was a free agent after leaving Inter Milan. In the second half of the 2000-01 season, Baggio was joined at Stadio Mario Rigamonti by a young Andrea Pirlo, who had been loaned back to his formative club by Inter. It was while attempting to fit the two playmakers into his starting XI that Brescia coach Carlo Mazzone had the inspired idea to move Pirlo back into the deep-lying regista role where he would go on to make his name.
With Baggio and Pirlo in tandem (never more memorably than when the latter teed up the former for a magnificent late equaliser at Juventus in April 2001), Brescia finished eighth in Serie A—the club's highest placing since 1946—and reached the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia. And Balotelli witnessed some of it with his own eyes.
A local boy, Balotelli spent the 2000-01 season playing for district club Pavoniana, which had a partnership with Brescia. As part of the arrangement, Pavoniana's players would work as ball boys for Brescia's matches, which is how Balotelli—then aged 10 years old—ended up spending some of his afternoons watching Baggio and Pirlo from the sidelines at the Rigamonti.
Brescia had previously attempted to sign Balotelli when he was playing for local youth side Mompiano. They were also one of several clubs that made bids for him in 2006 after Lumezzane, the club he went on to play for, were relegated to Serie C2, but he ended up joining Inter. This summer, they finally got their man.
In Balotelli's words, it was his late adoptive father Francesco Balotelli's "dream" that his son would one day turn out in the blue and white of Brescia. The 29-year-old's decision to join his hometown club on a three-year deal was therefore rich in personal significance.
"My mum cried when I told her I had the possibility of coming to Brescia," Balotelli said at his introductory press conference last month. "I asked what she thought and she was just crying. She's very happy."
Before "Super Mario", before "Why Always Me?", before the supercars and the diamond earrings, before the fireworks and the darts and the training-ground bust-ups, before the fresh starts and the false dawns, Mario Balotelli was simply a football-mad little boy.
He first came to Brescia with his biological parents, Thomas and Rose Barwuah, who moved to the Lombardy region after first settling in Palermo following their arrival from their native Ghana in the late 1980s. Obliged to share a one-room apartment with another African family in the town of Bagnolo Mella, the Barwuahs asked social services for help looking after three-year-old Balotelli (then known as Mario Barwuah), who had already spent nine months in hospital in Palermo after undergoing surgery to correct an intestinal problem.
Social workers recommended that the boy be fostered by a retired local couple, Francesco and Silvia Balotelli, who had successfully fostered other children. The couple, who eventually became Balotelli's adoptive parents,lived in the hamlet of Sant'Andrea near Concesio, a small town a short drive north of Brescia.
As detailed by Luca Caioli in his 2015 book, Balotelli: The Remarkable Story Behind the Sensational Headlines, the story goes that it was in the long hallway of the Balotellis' duplex apartment that the young Mario first started kicking a ball around.
He went to school in Brescia—first at Torricella junior school in Urago Mella, then at Lana Fermi secondary school—and it was in the streets north of the city that he spent his free time with childhood friends Marco Martina Rini and Sergio Viotti, riding their bikes, playing football and hanging out at the Mompiano parish sports centre.
His first football club was San Bartolomeo, but he soon left to play at Mompiano, where his elder foster brother, Giovanni, had played. Lino Fasani, chairman of Mompiano, told Caioli that the young Balotelli played in gloves "for five months of the year" and that his foster mother would rub white coconut cream into his legs before games to help him to keep warm and prevent his skin from drying out.
When Mompiano played away from home, such was Balotelli's phenomenal ability that the parents of opposition players would complain that he was clearly playing in the wrong age group. He was—but not in the way they thought. Miles ahead of players his own age, he spent most of his time playing alongside boys one or even two years older.
BRESCIA, ITALY - AUGUST 19: Mario Balotelli greets the fans from the Novotel window during the Brescia Calcio Unveils New Signing Mario Balotelli on August 19, 2019 in Brescia, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
As a rare black face in an overwhelmingly white region, Balotelli got used to attracting attention from a young age. While Brescia was his home, it was also, with sad inevitability, the place where he had his first experience of the racism that he has had to contend with throughout his life. "He was born and raised in Italy, but had to suffer the humiliation and hardships of being considered a foreigner," Silvia Balotelli once said.
Although Balotelli left Brescia in a footballing sense when he signed for Inter in 2006, he continued to live at home in Concesio, from where his parents would take him on the hour-long drive to the club's Interello training facility every morning. As he told the Inter website in January 2007, despite having signed for one of the most famous clubs in world football, he was still taking part in kickabouts with his friends at the parish sports centre. His home is a place that has always exerted a powerful pull.
Bought by former Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino in 2017, Brescia are back among the Italian elite for the first time since 2011 and have managed to keep hold of the squad that Eugenio Corini led to the Serie B title in the spring. Corini's men sit 12th in the Serie A standings after two matches of the new campaign.
Balotelli is yet to feature, as he is serving a four-match suspension after being sent off on his final appearance for Marseille at the end of last season. But he will soon have an opportunity to form what has the potential to be an explosive strike partnership with Alfredo Donnarumma (no relation to AC Milan goalkeepers Gianluigi and Antonio), who was the leading marksman in Serie B last season with 25 goals.
Fans of the Rondinelle ("Little Swallows") will also be salivating at the prospect of Balotelli linking up with Sandro Tonali, the 19-year-old midfielder whose elegance, passing range, ball-striking ability and flowing brown hair have invited obvious comparisons with another former Brescia midfielder. It could be Pirlo and Baggio all over again.
Having turned down a chance to move to Brazil with Flamengo, Balotelli used his introductory press conference—which had to be delayed after hundreds of fans flocked to the hotel where it was taking place—to declare that he is targeting a place in Italy's squad for next year's European Championship. After spending four years in the international wilderness, Balotelli made his Italy comeback in May 2018, but he has not played for his country in close to a year.
Balotelli is aiming to return to the national team
Roberto Mancini knows Balotelli better than almost any of his former coaches, having given the striker his debut at Inter when he was 17 and won the Premier League with him at Manchester City, but the Italy coach has warned his former protege not to expect any favours.
"I love him, but I can't do anything for him," Mancini told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "It's all about how much he wants it." Balotelli was not included in the squad announced by Mancini last week for Italy's forthcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Armenia and Finland.
This, of course, is not the first time that Balotelli has gone in search of a fresh start, but after a three-year exile in France, he is convinced that Brescia is the right place to be.
"It seems that you are more afraid of my failure than I am," he told reporters at his unveiling. "I'm not afraid—zero. I'm fine, I'm serene. This is my home."
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Mario Balotelli Joins Brescia on Free Transfer After Leaving Marseille
Aug 18, 2019
Marseille's Italian forward Mario Balotelli controls the ball as he warms up prior to the French Ligue 1 football match between Bordeaux (FCGB) and Marseille (OM) on April 5, 2019 at the Matmut Atlantique stadium in Bordeaux, southwestern France. (Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP/Getty Images)
Striker Mario Balotelli has joined his hometown club Brescia on a free transfer after leaving Ligue 1 side Marseille in July:
OFFICIAL: @FinallyMario signs for his home club Brescia
The Italian has signed a "multi-year contract" with the club, according to an official statement (h/t Football Italia).
"Mario Balotelli Barwuah is officially a new player of Brescia Calcio S.p.A. The footballer has signed a multi-year contract with the Rondinelle. The return to Italy, after three years, was made possible by Mario’s determination and enthusiasm to return to Brescia, the city where he grew up and where since he was a child he stood out for his physical and technical skills."
The striker will be officially presented as a new Brescia player on Monday. The club were promoted back to Serie A in May after eight seasons in the second division.
Football writer Kaustubh Pandey noted how the transfer would impact Brescia:
While Mario #Balotelli going back home to Brescia isn't just move that makes you romanticise about the game. Because of this, people who don't follow Serie A will know about #Brescia.
This move puts the club on the map for those fans. And it is brilliant news.
The move means Balotelli returns to the Italian top flight after an absence of three years. His last appearance in the league came while on loan at AC Milan from Liverpool.
ESPN's Matteo Bonetti is looking forward to watching him alongside starlet Sandro Tonali and top scorer Alfredo Donnarumma:
Mario Balotelli has made his Serie A return with his hometown club Brescia. This is one of those career mode signings you would’ve made in a video game.
Between Balotelli, Sandro Tonali and the former Serie B capocannoniere Alfredo Donnarumma, Brescia an interesting watch.
Balotelli has since spent time in France's top division. He joined Nice on a free transfer and racked up 43 goals in 66 games in his first two seasons with the club.
However, he was released from his contract with the club early and went on to join Marseille in January 2019. Balotelli scored eight goals in 15 appearances but left when his contract expired at the end of the season:
Mario Balotelli: Scored just 8 goals in Ligue 1 last season, all of which were netted in the second half of the season; Only 5 players scored more in that period
His performances during his time in the French top flight suggest he still has plenty to offer, and he also has bags of Serie A experience to offer his new club.
Balotelli has previously played for Inter and AC Milan in Serie A. He has also spent time in the Premier League with both Liverpool and Manchester City during his career.
The striker had been linked with a move to Flamengo. He entered negotiations with the club, but a move collapsed when the Brazilian side pulled out of the deal, per Goal.
Balotelli is known as much for his football as for his off-field antics. The striker has packed plenty of controversial moments into a colourful career, as shown by Sky Sports:
There is no doubting Balotelli's quality on the pitch and that he is an exciting signing for Brescia on their return to the top flight.
However, fans will have to wait to see him make his debut, as he was hit with a four-match ban after being sent off for Marseille against Montpellier in May, according to Football Italia. His debut could come at the end of September against defending champions Juventus.
