Why never him? Mario Balotelli is entitled to ask. The serial attention-seeker, who as a younger, apparently more restless man, wore a T-shirt with the words ‘Why Always Me?’ across its chest, is feeling ignored. At least from a place that matters to him.
And he is not alone for wondering if his country, Italy, is not becoming a little too stubbornly indifferent to the virtues of one of the game’s most enigmatic individuals.
Balotelli arrived in Rome on Wednesday as the leading goalscorer for his club, Nice, who on Thursday meet Lazio in Europa League contest where a victory for either side might carry qualification for the next phase.
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The Italy manager, Giampiero Ventura, who this weekend names his squad for the World Cup playoffs against Sweden, will certainly keep a close eye on the fixture, although his chief concern will be that Lazio striker Ciro Immobile, Serie A’s top marksman, comes to no harm.
Balotelli has not represented Italy since June 2014, when he came home with a humbled Italy after the group phase of the World Cup. He had scored the winning goal, against England, in their only triumph in Brazil but had left a poor impression on some around the squad.
Antonio Conte, Italy’s manager from 2014 to 2016, called him up just once, an appointment he was unable to keep because of injury. Ventura has not been in touch at all in the last 15 months.
“I have nothing against him,” Ventura said of Balotelli as Italy, finishing behind Spain, completed their group-stage qualifiers for Russia 2018. “But what counts is what a player brings to the group, the qualities of sacrifice and giving to the team.”
You might very well read into that a suggestion that, with Balotelli, there is a lingering suspicion that, for the man who wonders out loud, Why Always Me, it is too often All About Me.
At Nice, the club with a glamorous address on France’s Mediterranean coast but not much pedigree compared to Inter Milan, Manchester City, AC Milan or Liverpool, previous stop-offs in his hopscotch career, Balotelli’s outsized star quality has worked out surprisingly well.
He arrived there on a free transfer from Liverpool where he had become unloved, ineffective and a burden. The limelight trailed him, as he encourages it to, but the gifts that made the teenaged Balotelli so invigorating to watch blossomed. His period in Ligue 1, where Nice finished third last May, has been among the most satisfying of his varied career.
Yes, there have been controversies, but they have not exasperated his employers as much as his reckless diversions off the path of orthodoxy did at Inter or at City, where Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini, his managers at each of those, lost patience.
And set before Ventura, criticised for Italy’s insipid displays of late, is the evidence that Balotelli, who turned 27 in August, is approaching peak form. Not since a charmed spell, when he joined Milan from City at the end of 2012, has he performed so consistently as a goalscorer.
His Nice manager Lucien Fabre has praised his unselfishness, too, detecting growing maturity in his football. Balotelli scored 17 goals for Nice in 2016-17, and has five in his last six league outings this term. Those are Super Mario sized stats and achieved in a Nice team suffering a severe bout of vertigo, struggling towards the wrong end of the France's Ligue 1.
In Europe, where they sit second to Lazio in their group, Nice have been a little more robust. A Balotelli goal put them into the lead in the home game against the Italians two weeks ago, though Lazio’s three in response established the Serie A club's command of the group.
Some points to be made then, at a Stadio Olimpico where Balotelli has mixed memories. He has been racially abused from the stands there, in his time as a Serie A player. He has been the catalyst for great comebacks in Roma for Inter and for Milan.
Now to encourage compatriots to at least keep talking about the comeback he longs for, to Italy's blue jersey.
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
Where to donate in the UAE
The Emirates Charity Portal
You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.
The General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowments
The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.
Al Noor Special Needs Centre
You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.
Beit Al Khair Society
Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.
Dar Al Ber Society
Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.
Dubai Cares
Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.
Emirates Airline Foundation
Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.
Emirates Red Crescent
On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.
Gulf for Good
Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.
Noor Dubai Foundation
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).
'Laal Kaptaan'
Director: Navdeep Singh
Stars: Saif Ali Khan, Manav Vij, Deepak Dobriyal, Zoya Hussain
Rating: 2/5
'Manmarziyaan' (Colour Yellow Productions, Phantom Films)
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal
Rating: 3.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
