Brescia ultras, who Balotelli plays for, choose this moment to call him 'arrogant'.
Blatantly stating self preservation in defence of a cabal of dregs shaming Italian society.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50343222
for some time now we do not believe in the general media, which are increasingly looking for the scoop at any cost (other than the trash of Barbara D'Urso!);
at the stadium we are deeply apolitical, and as already said on other occasions, in many ways we are antiracist (for this reason we invite you to read our communiqué of 2015, in which we deal with the subject in question, pointing out among other things some concepts dear to us. Here is the link: https://19biesse11.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/bs_livorno15_16_resoconto1.pdf);
for this reason, let's be clear, we do not feel better than other Ultras groups and, above all, we do not think we have the truth in our pockets;
simply, we feel free to express some concepts without the possibility of denials or manipulations;
Just as stated in the above statement, we believe that - fundamentally - the fans can not currently be considered racist, in fact, in every team play more and more often boys from other continents, and are certainly not disputed or insulted for this reason;
Unfortunately, however, racism exists, existed and perhaps will always exist, especially in the civil society in which we live, where citizens are increasingly exposed to discrimination of all kinds, and this regardless of their nationality (to remain in football, the most striking example is that of the fan card, which criminalizes and discriminates against Italian fans who have not signed it);
Racism not only exists, but is also spreading, and this is also thanks to general ignorance, fears of an increasingly uncertain future, and especially thanks to those who legitimize and justify it, perhaps proposing / issuing laws against the liberticide Ultras;
In the face of certain episodes, some of which are very doubtful, we should ask ourselves why the media, the institutions and the leaders of Italian football have only now begun to cry out for scandal, and denounce only a part of the problem, much more complex than we want to make believe;
it is said that the stadium is the mirror of society, so, given the level of ignorance, violence and incivility reached - not by chance - by Italian society, should not surprise certain blatant demonstrations, provocative and apparently racist, and yet we are scandalized at every turn, without even deepening the truth of the facts (an example above all: after "Napoli vs Brescia" of this championship, one of the major Italian sports newspapers denounced the white-blue fans present in Naples for ignominious choruses apparently made against the Neapolitans, obviously hoping for an exemplary condemnation; for good fortune, while the machine of mud and summary justice was already leaving, the first retractions arrived and the newspaper was forced to correct the news; In fact, the choirs were really made, but not by the Brescians; to intone them were in fact the Neapolitan fans themselves, who in addition to provoking the opponents anticipating them in their alleged intentions, with a marked self-irony had wanted to denounce the conformism typical of Italian society and the servility of many national media. In this case it went well, the truth prevailed and no innocent paid, but history teaches that it has not always been the same for the Ultras);
Precisely because we have often been victims of prejudice, institutional violence, media gogne and miscarriages of justice, we do not like to judge and prosecute publicly others;
despite this, and although none of us personally know Mario Balotelli, we must admit that we have had differing opinions (compared to those who call him a sacrificial victim) and unflattering about him since before he wore our Jersey;
Moreover, we were not the only ones to have had doubts about him, if it is true that thousands of fans from different Italian / foreign squares first welcomed him with open arms, and then defeated him for his attitude (and certainly not for the color of the skin), sometimes childish, often indisposing;
after all, his exploits inside and - above all - outside the football pitches, the famous "Balotellate" to be clear, are by now a well-known and acclaimed history;
We did not oppose or denigrate him when he arrived in Brescia; on the contrary, we accepted and respected him like all the other players in Brescia who wear our Jersey, less famous footballers than him, but who showed - from the beginning - passion and spirit of sacrifice;
the fact that he lives in Brescia and wears our Jersey, however, does not elevate him above all and everyone else, and the arrogance that seems to shine through his person is not justifiable, especially when he brings it to the field and becomes a reason for destabilization for the team and tension and embarrassment for the fans (as for Brescia, we refer in particular to the middle finger exhibited as a response to Inter fans for their chorus against, perhaps offensive and provocative, but certainly not racist in response to the fans of Inter for their chorus, maybe offensive and provocative, but certainly not racist; not to mention the photographer who Balotelli -after the "suffered" replacement in Marassi- broke the camera with which he was working);
Balotelli, among other things, should know that for errors much more venial than those he committed (even in the recent past), any fan would be "massacred", denounced and finally distrusted for years;
Having said that, we are extremely convinced that Balotelli is in fact Italian, and - as far as we are concerned - even from Brescia (although he has always shown his passion for Milan), but he must be convinced of one thing: precisely because he plays in Brescia as a Brescian, his dedication to the cause and his commitment must be equal - or even superior - to those of his teammates (who, by the way, must not make themselves forgiven for a past to say the least... over the top), above all, they must be greater than those profusioned up to now, and by this, of course, we are not referring only to the two goals scored, moreover, irrelevant;
For us, in fact, what matters most is the spirit of sacrifice, passion, respect, motivation, the sweaty jersey, concepts that seem unknown to him at the moment (for this reason we hope to be denied soon);
for instance, for his part (as indeed by all the other players of Brescia) we want a total commitment, at least until he wears our sweater;
no one has ever put pressure on him, so the nervousness that grips him and turns him into a negative every time he takes to the field (not only in Verona) is unjustified, at least for us;
if he wasn't ready psychologically to face a supporter such as the one in Verona and - above all - a game as delicate as Sunday's, in which a city (ours) was playing salvation and a coach - among the most beloved in absolute - was playing his last chance, he had to say it and leave the place to someone less... nervous than him; no one would be pissed off, indeed...;
it wasn't the first time that Balotelli played in Verona, and given his past in the ranks of Inter and Milan, he knew well the yellow and blue fans and the value of a derby, so, for better or for worse, he also knew what he could be facing; moreover, they confirm that the provocations towards him have been really marginal (he has then admitted it publicly even), and we know very well how much the Scaligeri fans can expire in provocation (after all, rightly or wrongly, they have always boasted of this peculiarity);
this obviously does not mean that some choirs are legitimate and acceptable, but neither does it mean that the yellow and blue fans are all racist, and that the Curva del Verona is a sort of hideout of the KKK, as some would have it believe (this is also demonstrated by the fact that to provoke "seriously" Balotelli were very few fans, among other things "unrelated" to the choirs of the rest of the Curva);
Having said all this, we are willing to start again from Saturday also - and especially - with Mario Balotelli this summer (provided of course that the club stops blackmailing us and puts us in a more than dignified condition to enter the stadium), that is, with the player who said he had put his head in place, to love our beautiful city, and want to give his all to change (obviously for the better) the white-blue story of recent years.
let's be clear to everyone: we don't want to be the devil's lawyers, and we don't even want to be proveronese sympathizers (we're not looking for new friendships, the rivalry is in fact sacred for us), but we like to mention the yellow and blue Ultras especially for their solidarity shown during the dramatic months in which a boy of our group remained in a coma because of a violent and unmotivated beating of the fast, in the Porta Nuova station, just after a derby with Verona;
Moreover, however questionable, the personal statements in the post match of one of the leaders of the Veronese Curva cannot justify the witch-hunt unleashed by the media and institutions in yet another attempt to criminalize and finally execute the entire Ultras world;
not to mention the measure implemented by the Verona club, which, thanks to the possibility of applying the code of ethics (so much disputed by us), will prevent entry to the Bentegodi for more than ten years to one of its historical fans, who had the audacity to express in the post match a thought perhaps very strong (which we also did not share, as we have already explained), but that certainly has little or nothing to do with the stadium and the cheer in general;
an unconventional language, but one of strong topicality; in fact, it is increasingly used by public and political figures, to whom of course no one would ever think to apply the code of ethics in question;
for this reason we feel to condemn every gesture, every provocation clearly hostile and discriminatory towards all our players, and not only;
at the same time, however, we want to give our solidarity to those who have suffered yet another liberticide measure, this time not from the Police Headquarters, which evidently did not consider this attitude so serious, but from their own society;
to those who have been outraged -also rightly- by some apparently racist episodes within the stadiums, remember that the theme of racism today is often used to create a new scaremongering between public opinion, useful -as a Trojan horse- to introduce new tools of repression and mass control, which otherwise would not be justifiable and acceptable (unfortunately this method has already been used in the past, artfully exploiting the theme of alleged violence of organized groups).
