Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini has confirmed striker Mario Balotelli was fined a week's wages for breaking a club curfew.
The 21-year-old accepted the punishment - believed to be around £120,000 - after being pictured outside a strip club in Liverpool in the early hours of Friday morning, contravening club regulations ahead of Saturday's game against Bolton.
Balotelli went on to play and score in the Barclays Premier League leaders' 2-0 defeat of the Trotters at the Etihad Stadium but Mancini expressed his disappointment and pledged to investigate.
Mancini said: "I spoke with Mario and gave him a fine of one week's wages for what he did.
"This is normal because every player should have good behaviour before the game."
When asked if Balotelli had accepted the fine, Mancini said: "Yes."
It is the second time Balotelli has broken a curfew this season - among a host of other high-profile misdemeanours - but he admitted in an interview published on Tuesday that he had made a mistake.
Mancini was speaking in Portugal ahead of the first leg of City's Europa League last-16 tie against Sporting Lisbon at the Jose Alvalade on Thursday night.
The Italian dismissed suggestions from the Portuguese side that the club may underestimate the challenge ahead of them.
City thrashed Portuguese champions Porto 6-1 on aggregate in the previous round but Mancini insists there will be no complacency as they come up against a lower-ranked side.
Sporting are currently fourth in the Portuguese league, 14 points behind Porto, and suffered a shock loss to struggling Setubal at the weekend.
Mancini said: "I played here five years ago with Inter in the Champions League and we lost. We had the same situation the day before.
"I don't think an easy game exists in football, in the Europa League. Every game is very difficult.
"If we want to win we should play very well and have good concentration for this game.
"Sporting Lisbon are a good team and play very good football."
Sporting coach Ricardo Sa Pinto and goalkeeper Rui Patricio both said earlier in the day that City would pay the price if they have not done their homework ahead of the game.
Sa Pinto said: "My stance on football is always to be very well informed about my opponent.
"Maybe not everyone does that and that is up to them, but after tomorrow they maybe won't forget about some of the Sporting players' names."
Patricio said: "I don't care whether they know Sporting's players or not - they will get to know them tomorrow."
Mancini is also not seeing the competition as a distraction from the Premier League title challenge.
City lead the table by just two points with 11 games to go but Mancini remains focused on both objectives.
He said: "We want to improve every year. We started last year with the FA Cup and now we have a chance in the Europa League and the Premier League.
"This is our target and we want to do this if possible.
"We know it will be difficult because we should play one game every three days in the next month but we have good players, we have a good team.
Mancini also has no doubt the Europa League would be a prestigious title to win.
He said: "It is like the Champions League because there are a lot of big teams - (Manchester) United, Valencia, Sporting Lisbon, Manchester City.
"I think it will be hard to win this cup but for us it would be important to arrive in the final."
City will have to make do without midfielder Yaya Toure through suspension.
Toure has been back to his dynamic best since returning from the African Nations Cup, reinvigorating City's season with fine displays in both legs against Porto and league wins over Blackburn and Bolton.
Mancini said: "Yaya us an important player for us but we have 20 good players.
"I think we can do a good job without Yaya, I am sure. We didn't have Yaya for one month in January but we did very well."
