If AC Milan star Mario Balotelli is best known for anything it’s being an amazing soccer player. After that, it’s probably being a bit of a skirt-chasing party animal and his relationship(s) with Raffaella Fico. And a close runner-up to that is being the target or horrific, inexcusable racial hate at the hands of opposing fans and media outlets. And then maybe his ridiculous camouflage Bentley, because that’s what I always think of when someone mentions his name.

Then again, some people might also suggest that he’s best known for being a headache and malcontent with a history of strange behavior, but he has almost always shrugged that off. Perhaps he’s also shrugging off this weekend’s latest run of headaches, which included a yellow card, tantrum and a probable fine from the Italian government.

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Italian soccer star Mario Balotelli is only 22-years old, and as the face and presumable future of Manchester City and the Italian National Team, it’s safe to say that he has a long career ahead of him. But with so much success already coming at such a young age, Balotelli has seen his fair share of controversy, from the racial taunts of opposing teams at Euro 2012 to the daily tabloid reports on European websites and in trashy gossip rags. Of course we sympathize with him for the former and we love him for the latter, because athletes who recover from losing Europe’s biggest soccer tournament by partying with beauty queens in the wake of a paternity scandal brought about by one of soccer’s most notorious WAGs is stronger than a fresh pot of coffee to us.

But I mention Balotelli today not because he broke up with his pregnant girlfriend, Rafaella Fico, yet again because they can’t agree on where to have the baby and he allegedly can’t keep his striker in his Umbros. Instead, I’m bringing him up because – Dude, what the hell did you do to your Bentley?

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Perhaps we jumped the gun a little when it was reported that Mario Balotelli – just one day after Italy lost to Spain in the Euro 2012 Final – was ready to embrace his role as a proud daddy when his ex-girlfriend Raffaella Fico announced that she was pregnant with his baby. After all, it would require a great deal of certainty on his part that the child is indeed his, as they’d been broken up for a few months. Also, she didn’t announce it, so much as she sold the story to tabloids.

Plus, he’s only 21-years old, incredibly wealthy, and one of the most famous soccer superstars on the planet. So yeah, on second thought, he’d like to see a paternity test first.

But today he said in statement that he would only ”accept full responsibility” for the baby after a DNA test proved he was the father.

”I will accept full responsibility after a paternity test. I don’t really want to speak publicly about my private life but I find that I have to explain once and for all, the nature of my relationship with Raffaella Fico.” (Via the Sun)

Well that’s a very mature and reasonable way of looking at it. What’s that, he’s not done? Okay, well go right on, Mario.

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Italy may have had its meatballs snipped off by Spain with a 4-0 loss in the Euro 2012 Final, but that doesn’t mean it’s all misery and depression for Mario Balotelli and Co. In fact, for Italy’s star player, today is filled with nothing but good news, as he has rekindled his failed love affair with soccer WAG Raffaella Fico. So what’d it take to bring these two lovebirds back together? An unexpected pregnancy. Hooray, cupid!

Fico told the gossip rags that she used a pregnancy test to confirm her expectations and she let Balotelli in on the news over the weekend. And it’s really nice to see that Balotelli is manning up and taking responsibility. Hopefully, this time he won’t allegedly cheat on Fico with an expensive English prostitute 5 times, after Wayne Rooney also allegedly had a fling with her.

But if Balotelli can get over everyone reminding him that Fico is just Cristiano Ronaldo’s sloppy seconds, then he can get through anything. After all, it must be pretty hard to say no to this woman.

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Soccer racism is something we rarely talk about at With Leather, because 1) it’s one of those ridiculous, inexcusable traditions hanging on as “part of the sport” because people in Europe never officially got a Civil Rights movement, and 2) we never write about soccer. But soccer racism is real, and when it’s not seeping out in the form of “monkey” chants or black players having bananas thrown at them, it shows up in Italian newspaper cartoons. I shouldn’t have to explain why the above comic picturing Italian footballer Mario Balotelli as a giant ape is awful, unless you’re one of those people who thought that LeBron James Vogue cover was just beautiful people showing passion.

Anyway, Mario Balotelli (pretty accurately described by Rumors & Rants as “Italy’s Ron Artest”) is King Kong and that picture went through at least five stages of publication before showing up in a newspaper without anyone thinking it was a bad idea. Gazzetta dello Sport eventually issued an apology, kind of, but … well, read it yourself.

Gazzetta acknowledged its mistake, saying: “It wasn’t our cartoonist’s best product. In these times we need a bit more moderation, caution and good taste. But we have always fought against racism and condemned booing against Balotelli as unacceptable.”

At least now we know who’d win a fight between Mario Balotelli and Hideki Matsui, right?

Racist and prejudiced cartoons and nicknames are the “black face Halloween costume” of journalism — they’re a bad idea and you’re pretty stupid for not just knowing it. Plus, the only reason you’re doing it is for shocked publicity, which those of us who DON’T want to draw black people as apes end up having to report on. Is “Mario Balotelli is an ape” really the most creative thing you can come up with? Put five more minutes of effort into the process and you’ll come up with something better. Hell, here’s a freebie: draw him drinking a bunch of urine.

As a bonus, here’s a clip of Balotelli accidentally drinking somebody’s urine.

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While most parody Twitter accounts simply bring us incredibly accurate portrayals of NFL quarterbacks, an account dedicated to Italian striker Mario Balotelli actually helped spread a friendly reminder earlier this morning to aspiring European soccer hooligans. In a recent interview, Balotelli said that if any fans get out of hand and downright racist toward him at next month’s Euro 2012 tournament, he will kill them.

Plain and simple.

“I will not accept racism at all,” Balotelli, who was abused by Juventus and Roma fans while playing for Inter Milan in 2009, told France Football magazine.

“If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail because I will kill them,” he added, referring to an incident in Rome when someone threw a banana at him in a bar.

“It was lucky the police arrived quickly because I swear, I would have beaten them. I would really have destroyed them.

“I hope it never happens again.” (Via Reuters India)

UEFA officials, in unison with Polish and Ukrainian leaders, have assured Euro 2012 fans that the tournament will be free of racism and hatred, despite the recent reminders that some European soccer fans like to wave Nazi flags at soccer games. But Balotelli and other players that have faced racist taunts and chants aren’t quite buying it.

I think the best solution for Balotelli would be to train Ukraine’s stray dogs to sniff out and destroy racist soccer fans. If anything, it would make for one hell of a Pixar movie after the tournament.

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