Italy’s new deputy Prime Minister doesn’t feel Mario Balotelli should captain the Azzurri because he isn’t “humble” enough.
Matteo Salvini led the right-wing anti-immigrant Lega in the 2018 elections, and has been appointed as deputy Prime Minister in the new coalition government.
He has already courted controversy by telling immigrants to “pack your bags”, while calling Sicily “the refugee camp of Europe”.
Italy’s new deputy Prime Minister doesn’t feel Mario Balotelli should captain the Azzurri because he isn’t “humble” enough.
Matteo Salvini led the right-wing anti-immigrant Lega in the 2018 elections, and has been appointed as deputy Prime Minister in the new coalition government.
He has already courted controversy by telling immigrants to “pack your bags”, while calling Sicily “the refugee camp of Europe”.
Balotelli, who was born in Palermo to Ghanaian parents, could captain his country against the Netherlands tonight.
“The captain has to be a representative as well as playing well with the ball,” Salvini insisted on Rtl 102.5.
“He doesn’t have to be white, yellow, or green. I hope that the CT will choose the captain not for sociological, philosophical and anthropological reasons, but because he’s a lad who brings the dressing room together, is humble and plays well.
“Maybe Balotelli will amaze me, but in recent years he hasn’t seemed like a humble person who is able to make everyone agree.”
Super Mario has publicly criticised the Lega in the past, after it returned Italy’s first black senator, who was pictured in a “stop the invasion” t-shirt alongside Salvini.
Formerly known as the Lega Nord, the party initially wanted the north of Italy to have more autonomy or even secede from the south.