Mario Balotelli, to put it frankly, is a player that has been dividing opinion and confounding football followers since arriving on the scene in 2007 after turning professional the year before with lower-division Italian side Lumezzane.
He infuriated Inter supporters by sporting a Milan jersey while on a TV appearance and frustrated Manchester City fans with some of his antics during his first spell in the Premier League.
Upon returning to Italy to link up with Milan in January 2013, a move he described as a "dream to play for his boyhood club", he appeared to have settled down initially, netting 12 times in 13 games to help the struggling side clinch a Champions League berth at the end of the 2012/2013 season.
However, in his first full season with the Rossoneri, while scoring 18 goals in all competitions, the team struggled and the Azzurri star found himself subject to heavy criticism from the press and fans. A disappointing World Cup had owner Silvio Berlusconi, who never wanted the player in the first place, gleefully expressing his joy at seeing the last of him when he was eventually sold to Liverpool in a £16 million deal.
Why always me? The 24-year-old has been charged by the FA for posting the following which was deemed as anti-Semitic
So far, he has failed to make an impact at his new home and is still searching for that elusive Premier League goal as the Reds continue to struggle to replicate their great form from last campaign. Yet, Brendan Rodgers has come out to back him and has vehemently denied a sale this January.
Balotelli's antics have many scratching their heads and throwing their hands up in exasperation, but his struggles with racism--including even being abused by his own countrymen on numerous occasions--is something that certainly is clear as daylight. Yet, the depth of Super Mario's unfortunate troubles have not been revealed...until now.
According to British reports, before he became an internationally-known footballer, the Italian international of Ghanaian heritage was so desparate to fit in among his classmates that he would go to extreme lengths in an attempt to change his skin color.
This shockingly included "washing his hands in boiling water" to try to make them white like the other children and "using felt pens to colour his skin pink".
And the Sun goes on to cite his primary school teacher Tiziana Gatti as stating that the future star had "an identity problem. [When] I [would] ask him how do you see yourself, he asked me more than once if his heart was also black.
"He did it to be like the other [kids] because he was afraid of not being accepted."
