Having nearly burned his house down when his bathroom caught fire last week, Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli, has backed a regional campaign to promote firework safety.

The striker, who scored two in City’s Manchester derby 1-6 victory on Sunday, has backed the TREACLE campaign which aims to highlight the dangers of playing with fireworks to children.

Of the incident in his home, Balotelli told the Manchester City FC website, “The newspapers got the story wrong about me and the fire at my house. I didn’t set any fireworks off, it was a friend of mine. I didn’t know anything about it until I heard the shouting coming from the bathroom."

“Luckily, nobody was injured, and my friend apologised to me for the damage to my house. It was a really stupid thing for him to do, someone could have been really hurt, and I was really, really angry with him about it,” he added.

The campaign was launched in Manchester ahead of Bonfire night next week.