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Balotelli busted for bust-up

Comment: 0 December 16th, 2011 by: admin

MANCHESTER City’s Mario Balotelli was involved in yet another brawl on the teams’ Carrington training ground as the striker launched into a tussle with defender Micah Richards.

According to reports, the fight erupted during the latter end of the practice session, when Richards called out Balotelli for not running hard enough as the defender made a stray pass.

The comment led to a heated exchange, and later on developed into a full-on bust-up.  Reports state that several players were needed to pull the two apart.  Balotelli had reportedly fired back words at Richards, and the latter then had to be restrained by Yaya Toure and James Milner.

City manager Roberto Mancini also jumped into the fray, also working to keep the two angry players apart.  Afterwards he brought them together for a lecture and afterwards had them shake hands.

The incident was then played down for the public, with Richards going on Twitter to assure people that the fight was nothing special and that they have returned to being in good terms.

‘Me & mario are all good!’ insisted Richards. ‘these things happen in training & we shook hands after. it shows passion!’

Despite Richard’s attempts, the confrontation will be yet another item on a growing list of misdemeanours which Balotelli has either been responsible for, or involved in.  A number of occasions that have landed the striker’s name in the papers included a police questioning after he was photographed touring an alleged Italian crime hub with two suspected mafia bosses.

A more recent and comparatively less serious one involved him setting his own home one fire after he and a few friends set off some fireworks through a window of his bathroom.

This incident occurred on the eve of their 6-1 rout of Manchester United, during which Balotelli was given a yellow card after he celebrated a goal by lifting up his shirt to show an undergarment with the words ‘Why Always Me?’

And when it comes to training ground brawls, this is reportedly the fourth time Balotelli had been involved in similar incidents, with the striker getting into confrontations with Jerome Boateng, Aleksandar Kolarov, and Vincent Kompany.

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