The agent and brother of Inter Milan sensation Mario Balotelli has revealed the teenager almost joined Fiorentina.

Corrado Balotelli said: "(Fiorentina sports director Pantaleo) Corvino already had reached an agreement with Lumezzane for the signing of my brother. Then I started dealing with him, personally.

"When you're dealing with a player of 15 or 16 years of age, you should always talk to the family first. They didn't give us much time to make a decision and in the end it wasn't long enough to say 'yes'."