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PHOTOS + The Mario Balotelli & The Barwuah Family Saga, Who Is Telling The Truth?

Abigail Barwuah-Mario's sister
Abigail Barwuah-Mario’s sister

This story of ‘father abandoning child or not taking care of child’ brings back into mind the Michael Essien and Dad issue. I hope that one has been finally settled…
Even if I were Mario, I would have found it difficult to accept the explanation the Barwuah family is giving no matter how convincing it sounds.
I would prefer to die with my own family than to be given out to another family…Why did they even have a child in the first place if they did not have the means to take care of the child?
Anyway, after reading the below piece, I would love to hear what you think….If you were Mario, who would you love more? The family who took you in even though you were under death alert or the one which was so scared to the extent that they gave you away? I hope you choose the former!
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Inside Thomas and Rose Barwuah’s third-floor council flat above a row of shops in Bagnolo Mella, on the outskirts of Brescia in northern Italy, photographs of their family adorn the walls.
There are pictures of their four children — Abigail, 22, Mario, 19, Enoch, 17, and Angel, 11. But it is Mario who takes centre stage. There are photos of him as a baby and then a toddler growing up in the Sicilian city of Palermo, kicking a football, in a suit at a family party and play-fighting with brother Enoch as Rose looks on.
But Mario is no longer a Barwuah. He has taken the surname of his adopted family, Balotelli. The toddler has grown up into an Inter Milan striker and Champions League winner valued at around £29million.
The player they call ‘Super Mario’ claims his natural parents abandoned him when he was two years old. The grainy images in the Barwuahs’ humble flat in Bagnolo Mella, a sleepy town of terracotta buildings, haphazard cobbled streets and a population of just 13,000, are therefore the only connection they have with their eldest son.
Mr Barwuah picks up a picture of a three-year-old Mario holding a football. It was taken at a friend’s home in Vicenza, a 90-minute drive from Bagnolo Mella.
‘Mario had spent hours playing football in the rain,’ said Mr Barwuah. ‘When the boys came in they were soaked but they were laughing and joking despite being wet. My friend said to Mario, “You really are Super Mario”. It’s the name we gave him.’
Mr Barwuah — a ‘poor metal worker’, as he puts it — is a proud man. But the strain on his face is obvious when he says Balotelli has only invited him to one Inter match in four years, the 2-1 Champions League win over Chelsea in February. Even then it was a second-hand invitation and a match in which Balotelli only played the last 32 minutes.
‘He turned up one day with four tickets and he gave them to his brother, Enoch,’ said Mr Barwuah. ‘I asked if I could come and watch and he said that Enoch had the tickets and he could do what he wanted with them.
‘He has never remembered us. Not a birthday or Christmas, nothing. He is not the same boy I knew when he was younger — always laughing and smiling. He was trouble but in a good way.’
Trouble, it seems, has followed Mario Balotelli throughout his turbulent 19-year life.
Born to Ghanaian immigrants Rose and Thomas on August 12, 1990, in Palermo, the future athlete was in and out of hospital as a baby. Mr Barwuah was forced to find work away from home and shuttled back and forth every weekend on a 12-hour overnight train. Mrs Barwuah was left at home with two young children — Abigail and Mario. Life was hard, to say the least.Mr Barwuah said: ‘There were complications with Mario’s intestines and he was in a bad way. The doctors were worried that he would not survive and we even had him baptised in hospital in case he died.
The Barwuah Family
The Barwuah Family

‘For a year we were frantic with worry that he would not live. He was our first-born son and we were so proud when he was born, but we were left facing the prospect he
might die.’
Mario’s condition improved by the spring of 1992 and the family moved to Brescia, a wealthy industrial city with a rich vein of factories and industries looking for workers.
At first they lived in a cramped studio flat with another African family before asking social services for help, pointing out Mario had recently recovered from an operation.
Social workers suggested Mario should be fostered. They proposed Francesco and Silvio Balotelli, who already had two sons and a daughter of their own. The Balotellis, a white Italian family, lived in a large house in Concesio, an affluent town six miles north of Brescia. They could offer two-year-old Mario a lifestyle of which Mr Barwuah and his wife could only dream.
Mr Barwuah said: ‘At first we were not sure but we decided it was probably best for Mario. We saw him every week and we all got on really well.
‘We thought that at some point, once things had sorted out, Mario would come back to us. But instead, every time we tried to get him back, the Balotellis kept extending the foster time.’
Mr Barwuah said the family initially agreed to a one-year foster placement, which was then extended by a further 12 months. But their eldest son gradually slipped further and further away from them.
‘We couldn’t afford lawyers to fight for us, so Mario grew more and more distant,’ he said.
‘He would come and visit and play with his brothers and sisters but he just didn’t seem to have any time for us, his mother and father.
‘We wanted him back for more than 10 years but, every time we tried, the courts blocked it and as the years passed he became colder towards us. The Balotellis know
people and are influential and we could do nothing.’ Balotelli was never officially adopted but made a conscious decision to turn his back on his Ghanaian heritage. He took the surname of his adopted parents and represented Italy’s Under 21 side.
Perhaps it was the teenager’s way of surviving in the racially charged cauldron of northern Italy, where he was regarded as an outsider.
As his foster mother has said: ‘He was born and raised in Italy but had to suffer the humiliation and hardships of being considered a foreigner.’
In 2008, on his 18th birthday, Balotelli gained Italian citizenship and an Italian identification card — at a ceremony at Concesio’s city hall to which the Barwuahs were
not invited.
‘We didn’t know anything about that until we saw it on the news,’ said Mr Barwuah. ‘I didn’t even know he had taken the surname Balotelli. I thought he would still have our surname.’
It was also in 2008 that Balotelli claimed during a television interview that his birth parents had abandoned him in a hospital. The footballer had by then found fame at Inter Milan and claimed the Barwuahs were only interested in him for his money.
‘If I didn’t become Mario Balotelli then Mr and Mrs Barwuah would not have cared about me for anything,’ he said.
The accusation is deeply painful for Balotelli’s biological father, but Mr Barwuah’s patience is running out. His response is passionate and exasperated. He knows there is little chance of change now.
Mr Barwuah said: ‘Mario was convinced we had abandoned him in a hospital but that’s just not true. That is the Balotelli family putting something into his head and it really hurts.
‘We have always loved Mario but he has changed. It’s the Balotellis — they have made him turn against us.
‘How can he say we just want to know him for his money? It’s not true. We don’t want any money. We are Christians.
‘Do you know what he has started saying now? That we beat him as a child. It’s a lie. We never touched him. We would never beat him. We gave him all the love we could.
‘We have done nothing wrong. We want more than anything to have our son back but now I think it’s too late.’Mr Barwuah said he saw Mario last month and the striker told
him he would be moving to Manchester. But there will be no family visits to England this season.
Mr Barwuah turns to those family snaps again, much-loved pictures that have been perused thousands of times.
‘Like any father, I wish him well. I was so proud when he joined Inter and I am still proud of him,’ he said.
‘I don’t want anything from him. I just want us to be how we were.
‘We did not leave Mario. Why would we have these pictures of us together?’
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBECkcmGjFY
 
Source



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0 thoughts on “PHOTOS + The Mario Balotelli & The Barwuah Family Saga, Who Is Telling The Truth?”

  1. leave ballotelli alone. he is not proud of being ghanaian he thinks he is a white italian but he is not he looks like an african i dont no why ghana keeps talking about him he wants nothing to do with Ghana. lets just forget about himk

    Reply
  2. If I were Mario no matter what I would stilll love my birth parents…they descide to let me live a life with another family instead of dying in their arms. He should understand they gave him life not once but twice and the best thing he can do is to respect that! Think about it if he was not adopted he would not be where he is now and who does he have to thank along with God…his birth parents. He needs to grow up to accept the truth

    Reply
    • @Akua,Relieved Rose Barwuah, 46, added: “I am happy to see him and he is happy to see me.”
      The Sun told on Sunday how Rose moved from Italy to the tough estate fe
      atured in TV’s Shameless to be near the striker, 21, in the hope of rekindling their relationship.
      Her £120,000-a-week son — who she handed to a rich foster family when he was two — now often shows up in his white Bentley GT at her £550-a-month rented terrace.
      Rose said: “Mario has been over to see me a few times, but he doesn’t want people to know I’m here. We don’t see each other all the time as he has his life and I have mine.
      “He’s a private person and it’s still early days.” She added: “I haven’t even been to watch him play football here yet, but I’m very proud of him. I’m thrilled, overjoyed to be here.”
      Rose and daughter Angel, 13, moved to Manchester’s Wythenshawe area just before Christmas. Angel now goes to a local school.
      Nineteen years ago in Italy, she and hubby Thomas were advised to hand Mario to foster parents — the Balotellis.
      The couple were then living in a tiny flat in Brescia — and claimed the Balotellis turned Mario against them.
      [email protected]

      Reply
  3. As much as i dont agree with what his parents did there is something called forgiveness, he has to forgive them n have a cordial relationship with them, who knows if he wasnt adopted he will be where he is now, i also believe his adoptive parents have brainwashed him they shd have encouraged him to at least see his parents, i dont think they want anything from him, they just want to have some sort of a relationship with him, no matter how he changes his name he will always be yaw bawuah

    Reply
    • What did u know the parents did? What ever Mario is alleging the parents did, were told to him by the white parents, and is that what u want to believe? Cant u see, that Mario has got other brother and sisters but senior sister and younger ones and u think Mario was singled out for such abandonment? Wake up and be reasonable.

      Reply
  4. Dailly mail published a story last that said Mario moved his biological families to a new rented appartment in mancity. (1) provide them their needs, (2) visits them daily basic (3) dinned with the biological-mum and last-born in one of the local restaurant nearer to the appartment…
    soo many stories stories…Aww! Can’t wait for more sequels of this STORY ooo…

    Reply
    • @Chelry,Well your telling the truth they are living in Manchester moment yeah and we should leave the boy to live his life he has suffered enough racial abuse already being the first black to play football in an Italian squad and sciring two goals by taken them to the final is a great achievement already cause Italians are the biggest racist and didn’t even wanted to select him in the squad 

      Reply
  5. i totally agree with him not to have anything to do with Ghana,he is used to the italians so let him remain there and please it is never true that italians are racist,the number of africans married to italians are uncountable and i dont call that racism.i used to think that germans are the most racist people ever you can find until i started working with them,i realised that they are not racist,just primitive people,always want to go by the rules.what they dont take lightly is lateness,when you are not on time,then you can forget it.

    Reply
    • U are still very ignorant, bcos u have one useless white family pretending to be nice to u means the italians are not racist? Do u think those Italians married to Africans have options? U are living in the brighter side of ignorance just like the Italians. Why are they dragging for the child they didnt give birth to? Cant u see the Ghanian parents have other beautiful childeren? Do u know what is raciism or adoption? If they actually adopted Mario, u think the parents will see him again? Who gave him the name Mario? U are just talking bcos u feel the Italians are doing u favour. Why dont u see famous white people marrying black girls like u? Both u and the White are not racist, u guys have decided no make ignorance ur best friend. U heard from the biological parents and u are still parroting absudity. I live in Italy 22 yrs now with a Child from Italian woman, i know what i am facing,

      Reply
  6. It must be very difficult and hurting for him with all this racism around him, knowing that if he was with his biological family this might have been different. And I think this is what is hard for him to forget. With time he’ll find peace with him self (his soul) and with his GH fam.
    Enough said, GHians should stop this, just because you’re born to GH parents dose not mean you’ve to act like GHiand and come to GH. Not many of these kids born outside of GH want that and they have the right. But with time if they want to, they’ll come.
    Take the KPB (Prince Boating) and what he did to GH. he used GH and h got what he wanted and now where is he? Is he ever going back to GH? GH JUST LET BOLATELLI BE!!!

    Reply
  7. YOU SEE FIRST MARIO IS YOUNG!! SECONDLY I STRONGLY BELIEVE THE BALOTELLI FAMILY HAVE DISTROYED MARIOS MIND. I KNOW LOTS OF WHITE FAMILIES WHO ADOPT AFRICAN CHILDREN AND TEACH THEM THEIR AFRICAN ROOTS! THERE IS A KNOWN BRITISH LADY OF ERITERIA. SHE WAS ADOPTED BY A WHITE FAMILY AND THEY DID A GOOD JOB BY REMINDING THIS LADY OF HER AFRICAN ROOTS. TODAY THIS KNOWN BRITISH AFRICAN VISITS HER FAMILY REGULARLY.. SADLY I THINK MARIO IS STILL NOT MATURED!! MARIO WOULD BE BLESSED IF HE TAKES HIS AFRICAN FAMILY SERIOUSLY. WE ONLY PRAY THAT HE FINDS HIS ROOT SOME DAY AFTER HE ALLOWS HIMSELF TO BE BRUISED!! JUST LIKE ALL THOSE WHO HAVE COME CLOSE TO MARIO LIKE MUNTARI. WE SHOULD PATIENTLY GIVE HIM TIME!! YOU SEE A WHITE SOME PEOPLE LAUGH AT MARIO!!!

    Reply
  8. Mario Balotelli was born in Palermo , Sicily , to Ghana ian immigrants Thomas and Rose Barwuah. The family moved to Bagnolo Mella in the province of Brescia , Lombardy, shortly after he was born. As an infant, he had life-threatening complications with his intestines which led to a series of operations, although his condition had improved by 1992. Mario’s health problems and the family’s cramped living conditions meant the Barwuahs decided to ask for the help of social services who recommended that he be fostered. In 1993, the Barwuah family agreed to entrust the three-year-old boy to Francesco and Silvia Balotelli, with the legal move formalized by the Court of Brescia. When Mario Balotelli became famous, his biological parents asked for his return. He later accused them of “glory hunting”, stating that they only wanted him back because of the prominence he had gained. According to Law 91 of 5 February 1992, Balotelli had to wait until his 18th birthday to request Italian citizenship, as the Balotellis had not adopted him, and he officially gained citizenship on 13 August 2008.

    Reply

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