Italian soccer player Mario Balotelli has issued a warning to the upcoming European Championship organizers that he will walk off the pitch if he is the target of racial abuse. The world's second largest football tournament will kick off in Warsaw, Poland on June 8th. Games will be jointly held in Poland and Ukraine. Balotelli's comments come just days after an undercover BBC documentary on racism at Euro 2012's host cities. The programme, entitled 'Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate,' showed fans making Nazi salutes and monkey chants towards black players. Some of England's black players have said their families would not travel to watch the games because of the fear of potential violence.
Balotelli made his intentions clear in an interview with the 'France Football' magazine. He said: "I cannot bear racism. It's unacceptable for me. If it happened again I would straight away leave the pitch and go home. We are in 2012. It can't happen….I hope it will pass without problem." The player has had plenty of experience of suffering racial abuse, including having a banana thrown at him in Rome. Talking about that incident, he said: "If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail because I will kill them." Ukraine's foreign ministry said racism in Ukrainian football was a "dreamed up and mythical problem" and that racism was far worse in EU countries.
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