Mario Balotelli could become the latest former Liverpool star to move to Saudi Arabia after being banished from training by current club Sion.
The controversial Italian joined the Swiss side in a £2m deal last summer, finding himself forced out by Turkish side Adana Demirspor following an explosive on-pitch row with manager Vincenzo Montella.
Sion had billed the much-travelled striker as their biggest ever signing last year. But they have seemingly lost patience with the 33-year-old after just one season as they look to force him out the exit door.
Balotelli scored just six times for Sion as they were relegated from the Swiss Super League. And despite having a year left on his current deal, the club’s sporting director Barth Constantin, who has previously fallen out with the Italian, has vowed to find a ‘solution to the problem’ after the striker was banished from first team training.
“There has been interest in Mario Balotelli from a Saudi club, but nothing concrete,” Constantin told reporters. “The Saudi transfer window will close later than the one in Europe, so we will see what happens. But for the time being Mario is training at our Riddes base, separately from the first-team squad.”
The sporting director’s declaration follows on the back of FC Sion President Christian Constantin laying into Balotelli in a heated interview with Swiss magazine L’Illustre.
“Mario has not repaid the confidence we placed in him,” he said. “Neither has he rewarded us for the big financial efforts we made for him.
“This lad thinks that the rules that govern a team are made for other people rather than him. If his agents think it worthwhile to find him a club in a country that values money differently to ours, then maybe he will soon play football again. Or maybe not. Perhaps it will be better that way.”
Should Balotelli move on, he would join his eighth different club since leaving Liverpool permanently in 2016. The former Man City striker was brought in as a desperate replacement for Luis Suarez in a £16m deal from AC Milan in the summer of 2014, despite then-manager Brendan Rodgers insisting he would not be signing the striker just a few weeks earlier.
Flopping at Anfield, he scored just four times from 28 appearances and featured just 16 times in the Premier League during a disappointing year at Anfield. Re-joining AC Milan on loan, he would leave Liverpool permanently to join Nice in the summer of 2016 after his Reds contract was terminated.
Balotelli would enjoy a successful three-year stint in France with both Nice and Marseille, even if his last half-campaign at the former proved unsavoury. Since then, he has enjoyed season-long stints at Brescia, Monza, and Adana Demirspor prior to joining Sion.
Infamously labelled ‘unmanageable’ by his former Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho, the latest twist in Balotelli’s colourful career has seemingly proved the Portuguese right once again.
