He wears what he wants...

The season hasn’t even started yet and the tabloids are already bashing Mario Balotelli over the head in their columns. This time it’s a fashion faux pas far surpassing Mario’s famous chicken hat. Or at least that’s what they say.

One tabloid (I won’t mention which ones this time because they’re all as bad as each other. The glorified toilet papers aren’t actually worthy of wiping anyone’s rusty ring piece, let alone me naming them) started with;

“MARIO BALOTELLI was condemned by a leading anti-knife campaign group last night – after turning up for training wearing a T-shirt that glorifies violence.”

“His top showed a pistol, machine gun, knife and a girl’s bleeding mouth and earned him a warning to start behaving like an adult.”

The red tops quote Gary Trownsdale, the managing director of the Damiloa Taylor trust, as saying “This kind of thing is reprehensible.”

Trownsdale then goes on to compare Mario to Newcastle United’s Nile Ranger who posed in a photo with an actual gun. Come on now, it’s hardly the same is it? But ok, I’ll hold off until I’ve actually seen the offending item of clothing.

The articles continue with further quotes from Trownsdale saying “...what I want to know is what their union chief Gordon Taylor is going to do about it.

‘It’s something that needs to be looked at. It’s easy for us to condemn young player for doing it but the PFA need to do something.”

Wow, this T-shirt must be truly abhorrent if he wants the PFA to get involved mustn’t it? This abomination must be horrendously offensive mustn’t it? What does this grotesque glorification of violence actually look like I hear you ask?

Really? Is that it?

Now I’m no fashion enthusiast or philosophical genius but here I go...

For a start it’s quite clear that the T-shirt spells out LOVE. Perhaps the designer wanted to highlight the shortcomings in society by depicting the word using weapons, and that we should collectively combat the gun and knife culture and try to regain the natural affection that has been slowly disappearing from society.

With this T-shirt you see what you want to see. Some will just focus on the guns while others will recognise the word love. Whichever one you are tells you something about your psyche.

Are you so superficial that you can’t see past what’s on the surface and declare this a hideous gratification of violence? Or are you someone who can see past the obvious, a person willing to see the good behind what may initially be perceived as bad?

I think we can safely assume those that print or read and buy into these pathetic headlines and the over-hyped diatribe that’s spewed forth on a daily basis is not the latter.

And does the 6ft3 Italian winker care what they say about him? Of course not! He’ll step into his illegally parked ride; flick a few £20 notes to passersby before speeding off in his Maserati to singlehandedly put out a raging fire or save the rain forest. After all, he is SUPER Mario Balotelli ;)