Footballer Mario Balotelli in legal battle to gain access to toddler daughter

With the selection for this summer's World Cup looming he doesn't need any extra pressure.

But Mario Balotelli will have a lot on his mind after attending an Italian court where he is fighting a custody battle over his daughter.

The Italian striker is in negotiations with his ex-girlfriend Raffaella Fico for the right to visit the child, called Pia, who is eighteen months old.

Ballotelli did not acknowledge he was Pia’s father until February this year after DNA tests proved his paternity.

He was allowed to hold her for the first time only a month ago in the court house in Naples, after the judge granted special permission.

Balotelli and Miss Fico attended a private hearing at a court in Brescia, near Milan, to discuss how often the footballer will be able to visit his daughter.

After a hearing that lasted about an hour the Serie A star’s lawyers said that they were confident he would have the chance to hold his daughter again before he leaves for the World Cup in Brazil.

Balotelli’s lawyer Alessandra Capuano told Corriere della Sera:  ‘We are well on track to finding a way for both parents to fully collaborate.’

The judge did not go into discussions on maintenance payments, which are the subject of a separate legal process beginning in September.

The pair have had an acrimonious relationship since she fell pregnant in Manchester in 2012, with Balotelli claiming she told the papers about the pregnancy before him.

Miss Fico then appeared to go to great lengths to persuade Balotelli to meet his daughter, posting pictures of Pia on Twitter and speaking of his 'indifference'.

But Balotelli claims that he would not meet her until his paternity was proven by a DNA test ‘because children must not be disappointed by adults who disappear.’

‘For a whole year I have tried to reach an agreement with Fico over where, and how, to do this DNA test,' Balotelli told La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier this year.

‘I cannot turn up if I am not certain of being her father, because children mustn’t be disappointed by adults who then disappear. I know something about that.’

In February he finally announced to the world that he had a daughter writing on Twitter: ‘Finally the truth, PIA, sweet child of mine, your dad.'

In April he took the day off training to hold the baby for the first time in a courtroom in Naples, spending about 50 minutes with her.

Balotelli was born in Sicily to Ghanaian immigrant parents. He was placed in foster care at the age of two and from then on raised by his adoptive family in Brescia.