Mario Balotelli was again at the receiving end of racial abuse when the president of his own club Brescia called him “black” after the footballer was dropped from the team’s last Serie A match.
Since returning to the Italian league with his hometown club, Balotelli has struggled to regain his old self. He was dropped from Brescia’s last league game against AS Roma after a dispute with coach Fabio Grosso.
“He’s black, what can I say, he’s working on clearing himself but he’s having a lot of difficulties,” club president Massimo Cellino was quoted as saying by AP when asked about Balotelli.
Brescia officials have later tried to “downplay” the situation and said Cellino’s statement was misunderstood. The club in its official statement said that the president was “attempting to downplay the excessive media coverage by protecting Balotelli”.
During his time with Inter Milan at the beginning stages of his career, Balotelli had faced racism. He was also subjected to racist abuse in the ongoing season’s Serie A game between Brescia and Verona at Hellas Verona earlier this month.
In the 54th minute of the game which Verona won 2-1, Balotelli got fumed by the racist chants from the Verona fans and kicked the ball into the crowd. After this, the former Manchester City forward threatened to leave the field when players from both the teams consoled him and stopped him from leaving the ground.
Derogatory chants were targetted at Romelu Lukaku, Franck Kessie, Dalbert Henrique, Miralem Pjanic, Ronaldo Vieira and Kalidou Koulibaly as well in this year’s Serie A.
Lukaku was hit with monkey chants during Inter Milan’s game against Caligari at the Sardegna Arena in September. The incident happened when the Belgian striker was preparing to take a spot-kick.