The adulation David Beckham is receiving for donating his Paris Saint Germain wages to charity is obviously understandable, but it appears one other high-profile footballer had already been leading the way.
Mario Balotelli, who this week completed a £19.5m transfer from Manchester City to AC Milan, has long been an individual whose career has been dominated by controversy and consistently divided opinion.
It also appears that he has long been donating generous amounts of his salary – 'almost half' – to charity, however. And in true Balotelli fashion, this revelation comes from the life he has left behind in Manchester in the form of model ex-girlfriend Tabby Brown.
What cannot be denied is that Balotelli very much lived the footballer's life. Perhaps his finest form was produced with Italy at Euro 2012, when he and Brown became an item, and when his fame grew even further.
One particular celebration now known as the "Hulk pose" went viral on the internet – something Brown says Balotelli truly revelled in while revealing he also used his fame to avoid a speeding fine when in Manchester.
'Mario googled himself obsessively to see how popular he was,' Brown said.
'He loved the web craze where people were photo-shopping the "Hulk" pose he did after scoring for Italy in the semi-final [of Euro 2012] and was beside himself when it made it on to Fifa 13.
'We were out in his Bentley once and he got stopped for speeding. But the policeman's face lit up when he saw it was Mario and let him off in return for an autograph!
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