Micah Richards Reveals Mario Balotelli's Crazy Fine Bill At Manchester City

Micah Richards has revealed that former Manchester City teammate Mario Balotelli's fine bill for being late to training was once £150,000.

The former City defender was a senior figure during the latter part of his career at the Etihad and one role he had was collecting fines.

He revealed to BBC Radio 5Live that the Italian forward was a heavy contributor to the fines he collected.

"Everything else seems to be within sync. Balotelli was always late.

"We used to give all of our money to charities and by Christmas time we'd have £100,000 or £150,000 in there all from Balotelli being late.

"He would be in the building.

"Say we had a meeting upstairs - he'd be downstairs just relaxing.

"He'd come to the meeting but he was just a bit dozy."

The former England international went on to say he was not as strict as captain Vincent Kompany when picking up fines.

"Kompany, he's busy isn't he? He just looks like that person anyway. He always kept a track of the fines and because I was sort of vice-captain, one of the leaders in the dressing room, he'd ask me to take charge of it.

"But I wasn't going to say to the manager 'Oh player was late today, oh player didn't put his bib in the washing machine'.

"So it was only if Vincent Kompany caught you. I'm not a snitch.

He went on to describe the Belgian as similar to a headmaster and that he used to keep a record book of the fines City players had accumulated.

"I tried to be friends with everyone. I told (Balotelli), 'I'm going to let you off today'. With him it was every other week so I could only do so much."

Richards spent fourteen years at City and helped them to the FA Cup and Premier League title during his tenure.

Another team which have a strict player fine system is Frank Lampard's Chelsea.

Their fine policy was released last week and it featured costly penalties for a variety of rule violations including turning up late for training and taking calls during team meals.

It's a great insight to how these top level athletes are managed.