Mario Balotelli accepted a minor pay cut when he signed with AC Milan in January. Apparently his $5 million paycheck doesn’t leave him enough wiggle room to afford an engagement ring.
The ever-newsworthy striker recently decided to propose to his girlfriend, 22-year-old model Fanny Robert Neguesha, taking her completely by surprise. Perhaps it wasn’t the proposal, but rather the engagement ring itself that bowled over Neguesha; it was made of tin foil, according to the Daily Star.
“It was a very spontaneous moment,” a friend of Neguesha reportedly told the Star. “She was bowled over.”
It seems that Balotelli could have ponied up a bit more of his salary to splurge on a nice ring for his Belgian sweetheart, but that was not the case.
In a recent interview with Italian television show Le Iene, Balotelli said that sometimes it’s hard for him to just be a “normal guy.”  However, the 22-year-old Italian star — whose estimated net worth is roughly $25 million — has historically had trouble staying out of the headlines for his completely abnormal behavior.
There was the time he paid a $650,000 home-repair bill after a friend set off a firework inside his rented Manchester mansion. Or the time he emblazoned his Bentley Continental GT in military-grade camouflage. Or the time he commissioned a bronze statue of his signature post-goal pose for his own home.
Maybe “Super Mario” has begun to pinch pennies so he can to try and feel more like a normal guy, but for a man with more millions in the bank than years on Earth, it seems like his fiancée deserves better.
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Photo via Twitter/YannkeeJenkins
