Mario Balotelli has warned the Euro 2012 racists that he’ll walk off the pitch if he receives any racist abuse.
Fears are growing over the plans of some fans ahead of the championships which begin next week in Poland and Ukraine.
A number of players have stated that their families won’t attend the matches due to worries over racism with a recent BBC documentary highlighting the problem.
During that programme former England defender Sol Campbell warned any black fans thinking of attending that they could come home in a coffin but Balotelli has other plans.
The Manchester City striker said: “If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to prison because I will kill him.
“Racism is unacceptable to me, I cannot bear it. I hope there will not be a problem at the Euros because if it does happen I would straight away leave the pitch and go home. We are in 2012, it can’t happen.”
The former Inter Milan striker suffered abuse during his time and Serie A and is uncompromising when he discusses an incident when bananas were hurled at him by Juventus fans.
He told France Football: “These two or three lads were lucky the police came straight away because, I swear, I would have given them a proper kicking. I would have destroyed them. I hope that doesn’t happen again.”
“Occasionally, you’re so good that people can’t think of any other way to make you angry. They think the only way to play badly is to provoke you.
“I had too pretend that I hadn’t seen anything because I wanted to play. I was young. It was up to me to tell the referee. But if I had told the referee to stop the match I wouldn’t have scored.”
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Good on him and hopefully his team mates also walk off. Why these countries got the euro’s al never know its time to wise up who cares what colour anybody’s skin is white black yellow pink with blue dots does it matter it’s the inside that counts I for one couldn’t care less, again good on him hail hail
I was going to ask why UEFA selected two countries where racism is normal & always have been a problem but it’d be pretty boring with the same 4 or 5 countries hosting it every 4 years. If it
will help stop the racism then it would be a great decision but unlikely that’ll happen.
The walking off park, ok that’s his decision but threatening to kill people would NOT be tolerated by anyone no matter what provocation so why are footballers allowed? In our we country we have seen in recent years how even online threats lead to court actions, imagine if a player threatened to kill fans if they where abused here?
Balotelli has just put petrol on the fire i REALLY hope the authorities stop these CRIMINALS getting into the stadiums & players like Mario do their talking on the pitch.
PS. good luck to anyone playing England (i hope i’m allowed to say that).