Balotelli and his crazy year in Sion: He gave the middle finger to a fan, dressed up like Pikachu or punched the club director

Mario Balotelli’s career has been going downhill for a long time. The then great talent of Italian football has spent the last year at Swiss side Sion, who were recently relegated from the first league. However, the connection between Balotelli and Sion will not be valid in the future. The Italian striker is leaving the club after a turbulent year.

Mario Balotelli spent only one season at Sion, and even at a club that is relegated from the top Swiss competition, the former great talent of Italian football will not stick around. In his previous engagement with Turkish side Demirspor he shone, scoring 18 goals in 31 games.

Balotelli will turn 33 in August and is still under contract with the Swiss club until the end of June 2024. However, after several escapades, it is almost certain that he will not stay at Sion for another season. The Palermo native has had a really tumultuous year at Sion.

Already at the beginning of September, Balotelli was filmed staggering out of a nightclub. However, Sion then issued an official statement in his defence, whereupon Balotelli responded to the whole affair with four goals in four games. Only a short time later, he was once again the centre of attention and considerable controversy.

As reported by Football Italia, Balotelli said in November that there was “injustice, corruption and incompetence in the Swiss league”. This was after he gave a fan the middle finger in a match against Basel. Of course, he was not expelled.

Balotelli caused further problems at the Marbella winter training camp in December, when he allegedly encouraged his teammates to bring women to his hotel room.

The Blick Sport server then recently revealed that he was drunk in the team hotel during the same training camp and then refused to play in the second half of one of the preparatory matches when Sion were losing 0:3.

The highlight of it all

The trouble culminated at one of the private parties, which Balotelli crashed along with the club’s sporting director, Barth Constantin. The Italian striker, in order not to be recognised, dressed up as Pikachu.

This plan, however, did not go nearly as planned. Balotelli was soon recognised by the people at the party and they began to taunt him. This of course led to a scuffle when the Demirspor reinforcement accidentally punched the sporting director Constantino.

The following weekend, Sion lost to St. Gallen 0:4, with Balotelli not putting in a great performance on the pitch. Constantin also attended the game with a visible black eye, and fans burned his jerseys and taunted him afterwards.

The end was inevitable. The sporting director admitted in an interview with Blick Sport afterwards that signing Balotelli was a disastrous mistake from the start.

Source: Football Italia, Blick Sport, Transfermarkt