Director twice arrested resurfaces offering Balotelli to Brazilian clubs | OneFootball

Franck de Sá Assunção, 46, a director at third-tier Botafogo de Cristinápolis in Sergipe, contacted Fluminense president Mário Bittencourt in December offering Mario Balotelli. According to Globo.com, Fluminense showed no interest and no talks followed.

Assunção then sought media attention and circulated documents, including what he said was a passport image, yet nothing materialised. People inside Fluminense viewed it as a speculative push. Balotelli, 35, later signed for Al Ittifaq in the United Arab Emirates after leaving Genoa in July.

Unregistered with Fifa and absent from the CBF intermediaries list, he has been at Botafogo-SE since May 2025 as executive director. His pitch pack shows photos with prominent figures and claims he ran Vasco’s football in 2013-14.

Zico, cited in those materials as having business ties to Assunção, said he knows him and may have spoken at the CFZ, but stressed he never had any business relationship and that Assunção never represented him.

He did not respond to multiple contact attempts before publication.

Assunção has twice been arrested in Brazil for illegal possession of restricted firearms. One conviction was converted to a R$ 4,942 fine last year, while in September he was sentenced to four years and 27 days in a separate case and could return to prison when the ruling is final.

The first case stems from March 2021 in Campinas, where a driver alleged threats and shots were fired and police seized two pistols and ammunition. The second was on 14 October 2023 on the Via Dutra near Piraí, when a 9mm pistol was recovered and he later received a custodial sentence after release on habeas corpus. He was briefly a Vasco director in 2012, lasting one month, and was later linked to Corinthians’ unsuccessful 2017 pursuit of Didier Drogba.

Source: Globo.com