Mario Balotelli’s former club fire parting dig at striker after tearing up his £54,000-a-week contract
FC SION have branded Mario Balotelli an expensive flop and revealed their relief at getting rid of him.
Former Manchester City star Balotelli joined the Swiss club last year and was labelled the country’s biggest-ever signing.
However, despite earning a reported £54,000 a week, he managed just five league goals as Sion dropped out of the top flight.
They have now agreed to tear up his contract, with the hitman poised to rejoin Adana Demirspor a year after his £2million departure.
Italy international Balotelli, 33, has not figured at all this season for the second-division leaders.
National media have focused heavily on the former Liverpool striker‘s salary, the largest ever paid to a player in Switzerland.
Club chairman Christian Constantin said: “I don’t want to go into how much money we paid Mario.
“I would have preferred for him to have scored the goals we expected him to get for us.
“Having said that, it is now time for us to move onto something new.
“Everything has been sorted out amicably with Mario. We have drawn up a document.
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“It is now in the hands of our lawyers to put it in shape.”
Constantin previously vented his anger at Balotelli in a Swiss magazine interview earlier this summer.
He told L’Illustre: “Mario has not repaid the confidence we placed in him.
“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.”
Balotelli has been banished from Sion’s first-team squad this season. He last played on May 13, in a 5-0 loss to Servette.
The former Inter Milan ace will now hope to revive his ailing career with Demirspor.
He scored 19 goals in 35 games for the Super Lig club after arriving from Italian side Monza in 2021.