Mario Balotelli isn’t getting a statue of himself flexing after all

On Tuesday, reports of Mario Balotelli commissioning a statue of himself sternly flexing quickly blanketed the Internet. But according to Italian paper Corriere della Sera, an email written by Balotelli and sent by his brother, claims the tale of a Mario Balotelli statue to be housed in Mario Balotelli's house is false. Since only every fourth ridiculous Mario Balotelli story is true, we all should have seen this coming.

"I just want to play football," the paper quotes him as saying. "The story of the statue is false." The emailer then goes on to say that he never met the artist interviewed in the original report and never approved the project he detailed.

We've been down this road before. In an interview with Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher last year, Mario debunked a string of oddball reports about him that the English papers fudged during his time in Manchester. And now it seems the Italian papers are picking up where they left off.

Then again, this is the man who has a camouflage Bentley and had his house catch fire when his friends set off fireworks in the bathroom, so il Corriere della Sera theorizes that maybe Balotelli did commission the statue -- as it seems someone did -- and only deny it after word got out and the whole world started laughing about it. Which tends to be a buzzkill.

Either way, the world still needs a Mario Balotelli statue or two.