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Mario Balotelli was entitled to a bonus payment of £1 million from Liverpool if he was not sent off on three occasions each season for violent conduct, according to a report in The Times. Sources told ESPN FC before the deal that Liverpool wanted to insert a behaviour clause into Balotelli's contract upon signing him. As part of a series of wide-ranging stories published by The Times in the U.K., Der Spiegel in Germany and El Mundo in Spain, based on a series of documents released by Football Leaks, The Times reports that the clause allowed Balotelli, who left Liverpool to join Nice on a free transfer in the summer after a troubled two-season spell on Merseyside, plenty of opportunity to earn the bonus. It is claimed the clause reads: "If during each season of the term of this contract the player is not dismissed from the field of play on three or more occasions for violent conduct, spitting at an opponent or any other person, for using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures and/or for dissent by word or action ... then on the 30th June at the end of each season he shall receive a bonus payment of £1 million." Balotelli was not sent off during his first campaign at Liverpool, but he spent the second season on loan to AC Milan. Meanwhile, the Times also reports that Balotelli was in line to earn £50,000-a-goal once he surpassed the total of five in the Premier League or Champions League each season. However, in his first season he only managed two in European competition and one in the league.
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