His mother wanted an ironing board. Instead he found some other beautiful things. He came back with a quad bike, a trampoline and a Carrera track.

Once again it was about expensive money. The women: Balotelli found a very attractive young woman and offered her £20,000 to give him her phone number.

As a Manchester City player, he raced in a working-class city in northern England in January. He saw a group of homeless people near the Hilton. He went down and entered the luxury inn and booked 24 rooms. He made sure the homeless could live there for a week, including food and haircuts.

When he was in Milan, the striker bought a truck full of children’s toys. Then he unloaded it in front of a school and distributed it.

Balotelli dressed up as Santa Claus and offered £1,000 to anyone who held his hand. But a reporter recognized him when he tried to escape unnoticed after the event.

He has no fun with the racist insults that continued throughout his pre-Euro 2012 career: “If someone throws a banana in the street I will kill them.”