Many know Mario Balotelli as the now 19 year old Inter-Milan striker dubbed “Super Mario” for his superb talent on the football field, but do many know his true story & what simmers inside of a painfilled broken heart of an African boy who is given up for adoption, named & raised by Italian parents & not accepted by the only nation he has ever known as one of them by law or love? Mario’s story has always facinated  me & I have always wanted to sit down with him for an in depth one on one dialogue about his life off & on the football field.

“Whatever I do, they’re always talking about me. I don’t read what they write but they keep at it nonstop. Balotelli here, Balotelli there. Why?” READ MORE

Many had no idea of Mario’s Ghanaian heritage until the build up to the world cup which had many Ghanaians & true global football fans anticipating whether Super Mario would be the equalizer Ghana needed to take them far in the world cup, especially with the absence of Michael Essien, the injury of Stephen Appiah & the one too many problems played out in the press between his Inter-Milan teammate Sulley Muntari & the Black Star’s coach. From the coach, to the GFA to Black Star players & to the world football press- Mario’s life, adoption, race, heritage & his much publicized bad boy behavior was on their radar & up for global discussion & consumption. As the late great Bob Marley said “You can’t run away from yourself“!

“We wanted him back for more than 10 years but, every time we tried, the courts blocked it and as the years passed he became colder towards us. The Balotellis know people and are influential and we could do nothing…Mr Barwuah said: ‘Mario was convinced we had abandoned him in a hospital but that’s just not true. That is the Balotelli family putting something into his head and it really hurts. We have always loved Mario but he has changed. It’s the Balotellis — they have made him turn against us…”READ MORE

“Inter’s Palermo-born Ghanian striker Mario Balotelli officially received his citizenship papers on Wednesday and said he was ”proud to be an Italian”…Balotelli turned 18 the day before and was given his Italian identity card and certificate of citizenship at a ceremony at city hall in the nearby town of Concesio.”This is even more exciting that making my debut in Serie A. The best birthday present I could receive now would be a call to join the Italy squad, although I’d be happy to play for the Under 21 team,” he told the press.” READ MORE

“We as Ghanaians pushed our side of the argument very well but I am just wondering how many of us will feel Ghanaian if I was born and bread in, say England, and I have lived there my whole life and I had no association with my Ghanaian parents and I wasn’t raised in a Ghanaian community and I don’t speak the language and I don’t know the land. It will be difficult for me to consider myself full blooded Ghanaian,” he explained.He said the Italians are doing the Ghanaians a huge favour with their ‘no black Italian chants’ against Mario Balloteli…Balloteli, he said is a symbol of racial integration in Italy, but having been considered surplus thus far despite his raving performance, and the continuous racial chants against him, he doubts if that integration will see the light of day…On the contrary, he believed Balloteli will be loved and adored by the Ghanaian fans once he makes the switch.” READ MORE

Imagine being a young boy embarking on your 18th birthday which in many parts of the world officially makes you a man & in Italy officially allows you to receive citizenship even though you have been living all of your 17 years of life as an Italian- born in Italy &  adopted & raised by Italian citizens & to now have to face your past 17 years of life as a boy without a nation or official national identity made prevalent by the color of your skin amassed with the pressure of the world’s expectations on your shoulders? Let’s just say many adults have lashed out & behaved badly with less pressures & heartaches to face in their lives, so maybe we should give Mario the benefit of the doubt  & allow him the human compassion needed  by a young man who we have put on a pedestal as a football prodigy, but failed to see the emotional turmoil he maybe going through  in feeling betrayed by a nation who he has given everything to & wanted more than anything to be accepted by instead of being a subject of their racist sentiments as just part of the game.  I see Mario as the young boy who is bullied in school  with no one to turn to & internalizes it to a point where he has had enough & decides his only recourse is to act out, fight back & give his abusers the savage that they say he is & want him to become to justify their behavior towards him.

“It was a night to remember for Inter Milan soccer fans.Their team had just handed the glorious Barcelona squad a solid, 3-1 drubbing in the first leg of the Champions League semifinal.But the morning after, the victory is tarnished by the image of an angry Mario Balotelli throwing his Inter Milan jersey to the ground in disgust at the end of the match…Super Mario,” the teenage Italian striker of African descent, came in off the bench with 20 minutes left in the game only the be jeered by the hometown crowd, something he quickly attributed to racism. As the Monitor has reported over the years, racist fans have been a problem for European soccer, perhaps nowhere moreso than in Italy. The summer before last the Italian city of Bologna hosted the Anti-Racist World Cup tournament in a bid to tackle the problem. Balotelli is no stranger to racism. Last year, the Italian soccer federation ordered the Juventus team to play one match in an empty stadium as punishment for racist insults hurled by fans at Balotelli.” READ MORE

As I watched Kevin Prince Boateng celebrate, make history & be embraced by Ghanaians/Global Africans & his Black Star teammates, I thought of Mario & how if he had not put all his hopes on finally being accepted as an Italian by being offered a spot on the defending champions national team after he had clearly proven his skills as an under-20 champ & with Inter-Milan, that he would have been there in the history making celebration & embrace of his roots & those who will never deny him. I often wonder if these same thoughts went through Mario’s head & if he wished he would have signed his allegiance with Ghana & chose the roots of his bloodline over his birth nation as Boateng had. I can only imagine how it feels to be heckled, talked about & disgraced by those who you want so badly  to be accepted by as you forego the open arms of the blood that runs through you, which you know nothing about or feel you have nothing in common with except blood & color.  I wonder what went through Mario’s mind as he watched Ghana being celebrated & embraced by the world as the shining star of Africa while sitting at home hearing more & more stories daily  about those in his birth nation wanting to cleanse themselves of the same African blood that runs thru him. Should Mario be seen as the unpredictable bad boy who is a ticking time bomb as we toss away the baby with the bath water, or should we show some human compassion to a young man going through an identity crisis of epic proportions with the entire world watching &  continuing to make it worse with constant criticism?

I was watching an episode of “The View” the other day when Rex Lee from HBO’s “Entourage” spoke of adopting a Black foster child & how it was rough at first because the child acted out & seemed not to bond with him & his partner, but the more time they spent with him showing him the love, acceptance & protection he desired he embraced them  & one day  said “I love you because you came back”. The child had been afraid that his new family was going to be yet another foster family who never came back for him when they dropped him off to school. The child could careless that he had two male gay parents or whether they were rich or poor, just that they came back for him; So I say to Italy & Ghana collectively that you owe your native son to come back for him, to love him, to accept him & to protect him & understand that this time in globalization & history calls for taking global nations/villages to raise a child. I truly feel that those who adopt children outside of their race/ethnic group should educate themselves & encourage their adoptive children to  learn about & embrace their roots because it is a harsh world out there & one can never know where they are going unless they know where they came from. Balotelli dismisses his Ghanaian heritage because his only association with it is one of abandonment & being given up to never have someone come back for him & it is wrong for his adoptive parents who were blessed with a child  whose biological parents probably only wanted to give him a better life than what they could provide to not take full responsibility in cultivating the whole person from his roots to the fruits that they now share & indulge in.   Our young men are more than just highly payed indentured servants on a field to play for our nations & to bring us the win -we owe them our love, praise & nurture as the beholders of our future accomplishments in history &  global forward movements!

As much as I wished Mario had made “The Decision” as Lebron James did to leave the ungrateful fans, team & town who he gave everything to just to have them turn on him the moment they couldn’t have him their way as puppet to puppet master,  by embracing the Black Stars, I am still behind him all the way because I know he is more than just two highly paid legs that are there to make goals & to bring wins.  Here’s to you Mario- No matter what the people say,  you are still Super Mario who continues to silence the naysayers & haters whenever you step on the field! Come and check for me because you have a story that the world must know through your own words, heart & soul of a gifted young boy who desired nothing but to play football & to be embraced by his birth nation, who became a man caught between two nations thru no fault of his own.

“It took Manchester City’s previous expensive striker of African descent 28 days of the last football season to plunge himself into a storm of controversy. To judge by his track record, the club will be lucky if the prospective next one waits that long. If Emmanuel Adebayor’s mind was a simmering ball of anger waiting to vent itself on the Arsenal fans who he felt had betrayed him, then Mario Balotelli, who City are confident of signing, is a timebomb ready to immolate any who stand in his way…City may discover soon enough if the 19-year-old has been a victim or a perpetrator during his short and controversial career at Internazionale and, more significantly, whether manager Roberto Mancini can tame him. The history is a complicated one and bound up in the question of the Italian nation’s seeming inability to embrace a multi-ethnic identity. At a casual glance, all that needs to be said is that Balotelli has been subjected to offensive terrace songs, of which at least one was openly racist. A particular favourite with supporters of Juventus is, “If you jump up and down, Balotelli dies”, though the really revelatory one is: “A negro cannot be Italian.” READ MORE