Balotelli: 'I only have one family'

Tuesday 10 August, 2010

Mario Balotelli makes his Italy debut tonight, but released a statement condemning his birth parents for giving an interview. The 19-year-old is on the verge of a move to Manchester City and should start this evening as the Azzurri take on the Ivory Coast in a friendly match.

“I had already asked my birth parents to respect my privacy, just as my family always has done, but they didn’t listen to me,” began his statement on Balotelli’s official website.

The Inter striker was born in Palermo of Ghanaian parents, but has lived with the Balotelli family since the age of two.

This week his birth parents gave an interview to a local newspaper in Brescia, where he lives.

“I have no other recourse than to repeat what I said two years ago: if I hadn’t become the football star Mario Balotelli, they wouldn’t have cared what happened to me.

“While I was on tour with Inter in America, a local newspaper published an interview with my birth parents. They said some incorrect and vague things which put my adoptive family in a bad light.

“This is something I cannot let pass, especially because my real family lives in Brescia – the family that has always loved and raised me. They are the only family who really know me as Mario.

“Perhaps in Brescia they don’t know that I stayed with my family uninterrupted for 16 years, the foster situation renewed every couple of years by the tribunal.

“Maybe they don’t know that I personally asked for adoption since the age of 13, but only managed to make it official in December 2008.”

In fact, Balotelli could not make his Italy debut until he turned 18, as he was not given an Italian passport.