{"id":467632,"date":"2018-02-26T09:51:36","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/26\/the-long-sad-story-of-balotelli-and-racial-abuse\/"},"modified":"2018-02-26T09:51:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:51:36","slug":"the-long-sad-story-of-balotelli-and-racial-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/26\/the-long-sad-story-of-balotelli-and-racial-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"The long, sad story of Balotelli and racial abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Sports News of Monday, 26 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>todaygh.com<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-26<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/97300900.295.jpg\" alt=\"Balotelli Africa\" title=\"Balotelli Africa\" width=\"295\" height=\"221\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Mario Balotelli<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519638696_209_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\"> The Nice striker was booked for complaining about racist abuse last week, underlining the total failure of the game\u2019s attempts to tackle the issue.<\/p>\n<p>On August 13, 2008, the day after he had turned 18, Mario Balotelli was belatedly granted citizenship by the country in which he had been born.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m Italian,\u201d the Inter striker proudly declared. \u201cI feel Italian. I will always play for the Italian national team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is even more exciting than making my debut in Serie A. The best birthday present I could receive now would be a call to join the Italy squad, although I\u2019d be happy to play for the Under-21 team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Balotelli\u2019s secondary wish was promptly granted and, the following summer, he was selected to represent his country at the European Under-21 Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Just before the team\u2019s departure from Rome for the tournament in Denmark, Coach Pierluigi Casiraghi allowed his Azzurrini some down time. During a stroll around \u2018The Eternal City\u2019, Balotelli and some of his teammates were approached by a group of Roma supporters.<\/p>\n<p>They racially abused Balotelli and threw bananas at him before fleeing when the carabineer were called. In the face of such contemptible provocation, Balotelli remained calm. \u201cMario behaved exceptionally,\u201d Casiraghi said afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old declined the offer to file a complaint, dismissing the incident as \u201cnothing.\u201d And it was nothing to him. He had already seen and heard it all before. Even at that age, Balotelli had grown accustomed to being targeted by the most ignorant members of society.<\/p>\n<p>His mere presence in the Azzurrini squad had already provoked fury among contributors to fora on right-wing sites such as Stormfront and White Front. The sight of a player born to Ghanaian parents but adopted by an Italian family was apparently too much for them to take. Sadly, they weren\u2019t alone in that regard.<\/p>\n<p>In April 2009, Juventus fans throughout Inter\u2019s 1-1 draw racially abused Balotelli with the Bianconeri in Turin. \u201cThere are no black Italians,\u201d they sang. Inter President, Massimo Moratti, was among those outraged by the chants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf I had been at the stadium, at a certain point I would have left my seat in the stand, I would have gone onto the pitch and I would have taken the team off,\u201d he told the Gazzetta dello Sport. \u201cThey seemed proud and happy to sing those things. This is terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The authorities, unsurprisingly, didn\u2019t deem such conduct quite so offensive, with Juve merely ordered to partially close a section of their stadium for one game.<\/p>\n<p>Then President, Giovanni Cobolli Gigli, issued a public apology to Balotelli and called for an end to such behaviour, but his words carried no weight. In Juve\u2019s very next game, away to Chievo, the supporters continued their campaign of hate against Balotelli.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you jump up and down, Balotelli will die,\u201d they defiantly roared.<\/p>\n<p>By Euro 2012, Balotelli was no longer willing to ignore the insults. \u201cI will not accept racism at all,\u201d he declared in Poland. \u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut let\u2019s see what happens at the Euros. I hope it will pass without a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t. Both Croatia and Spain fans racially abused Balotelli. The US-based website- Stormfront- was also shut down in Italy after saying of Balotelli: \u201cHe\u2019s black and Jewish. He should play for Israel not Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The following year, AC Milan\u2019s Serie A game against Roma was suspended for a minute and a half because of racist chants against Balotelli. Even then, he defended his compatriots, arguing that the small minority abusing him were more ignorant or jealous, rather than racist or prejudiced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRacist people are few and you can do nothing against [to change] them,\u201d he told Time Magazine. \u201cYou can talk, you can do what you want, but you can\u2019t do anything because they are just stupid people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I wasn\u2019t famous, I had a lot of friends, almost all of them Italian. The racism only started when I started to play football.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it\u2019s never stopped, no matter where he\u2019s played. He was racially abused while playing for Manchester City in Portugal and he has been racially abused while playing for Nice in France.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, he was subjected to monkey chants during a game against Bastia, which resulted in the Corsicans being ordered to play three games behind closed doors.<\/p>\n<p>Last week he was booked after complaining to the referee about the abuse he was receiving from Djion supporters. It is the victim that is now being punished \u2013 not the culprit, meaning things have changed, just not for the better.<\/p>\n<p>Balotelli was once asked how the incessant racist abuse made him feel. He replied, \u201cA little bit alone.\u201d Depressingly, that remains as true today as it was a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 56 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sports News of Monday, 26 February 2018 Source: todaygh.com 2018-02-26 Mario Balotelli The Nice striker was booked for complaining about racist abuse last week, underlining the total failure of the game\u2019s attempts to tackle the issue. On August 13, 2008, the day after he had turned 18, Mario Balotelli was belatedly granted citizenship by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":467633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}