šŸŽ„ Micah Richards has a great story about Mario Balotelli | OneFootball

šŸŽ„ Micah Richards has a great story about Mario Balotelli | OneFootball

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Dan BurkeĀ·19 November 2019

šŸŽ„ Micah Richards has a great story about Mario Balotelli

Article image:šŸŽ„ Micah Richards has a great story about Mario Balotelli

Micah Richards says Mario Balotelli got into trouble so often at Manchester City that that the club would have fined him over £100,000 by Christmas.

Balotelli might well have asked ā€œWhy always me?ā€ after looking at his payslip at the end of the month, but former team-mate Richards says the Italian striker paid the price for being ā€œdozyā€.


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Richards gave an insight into Balotelli’s tardiness when asked by BBC Radio 5 Live about a list of fines which recently leaked out of the Chelsea camp.

ā€œĀ£20,000 late for the starting of training – that is a lot. But everything else seems to be in sync,ā€ said the former City and Aston Villa defender.

ā€œBut Balotelli was always late.

ā€œWe used to give all of our money to charities so by Christmas time we’d have Ā£100,000 or Ā£150,000 in there just from Balotelli.

ā€œHe would be in the building. Say we had a meeting upstairs – he’d just be downstairs relaxing. He’d come to the meeting but he was just a bit dozy.ā€

Richards also revealed that in his role as City vice-captain, he was also made to awkwardly collect the fines from the other players by club captain Vincent Kompany.

ā€œKompany, he’s busy isn’t he? He just looks like that person anyway.

ā€œHe always kept a track of the fines and because I was sort of vice-captain, one of the leaders in the dressing room, he’d tell me to take charge of it.

ā€œBut I’m not going to say to the manager ā€˜Oh player was late today, oh player didn’t put his bib in the washing machine’. I’m not going to do that.

Article image:šŸŽ„ Micah Richards has a great story about Mario Balotelli

ā€œSo it was only if Vincent Kompany caught you, so the lads were avoiding him. I’m not a snitch!ā€

ā€œYou could appeal it as well. You had to go with Kompany into the manager’s office.

ā€œHe had a fine sheet logged of all the fines. He was like a schoolteacher, a headmaster. One of those guys that when you see him, you just turn the other way.ā€