Please Leave Balotelli alone, says Italy coach after sensational drug-dealing claims

Leave Mario Balotelli alone. That’s the message from Italy coach Cesare Prandelli a day after the striker was accused of drug dealing by a confessed member of the Neopolitan Camorra crime group. Speaking to Italian state TV on Friday ahead of a friendly with San Marino, Prandelli said: ‘It’s intolerable to keep coming after him and dragging him into every situation.’ The accusation came during testimony in a money laundering trial in which Balotelli also testified in 2011 about his visit to the crime-infested Scampia neighborhood a year earlier. Balotelli maintains he was just curious about the neighborhood after seeing it in a film, and he also reacted angrily to the Camorra member’s testimony. Prandelli added: ‘I can’t even imagine him dealing drugs as a joke.’