Combustible words from Mario Balotelli’s agent Mino Raiola after his client was banned for four games for his stamp on the head of Scott Parker at the weekend.
Raiola was just getting warmed up when he said that he will take his client away from the Premier League if referees do not do a better job of protecting Balotelli:
“I don’t want to say that they are always against him, but when English players are involved nothing happens,” Balotelli’s agent Mino Raiola said in an interview with Italian radio station Radio Radio on Tuesday. “I’m worried. I don’t want to talk about persecution, I want to be levelheaded and use my brain, but if I discover there’s something strange, then I have a duty to protect him and so search for a new club, that seems obvious to me. In that case I would talk to Manchester City, I would make them give me the cost of his transfer and I would look for the best club for Balotelli.”
Those were tame comments compared to the charges that Raiola leveled towards Howard Webb.
“I am very angry with the referee, because he lied,” Raiola said. “The TV images clearly show that the referee is no more than a metre away and that he is looking towards the incident, how can he say that he did not see what he was looking at?”
Balotelli is am immense talent on the football pitch, but a nutcase away from it. His behaviour is a little more understandable when you consider that he is getting counciled by people like Raiola.
I fear that Balotelli will leave the Premier League and move back to Italy, and when he does the Premier League will be poorer for his departure.
