The curious case of Joey Barton and his crucade against women in the men's game

[fletcherpost]

So some of you who delve into uk footie twitter will be aware that Joey "the cigar" Barton has gone all in on his mission to rid the men's game of female pundits and co-commentators. He's also got podcast to promote.

The recent FA Cup match between Palace and Everton had A female co commentator and a female pundit; (Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko respectively) as part of the team for the match. Joey compared them to Fred West and Rose West, (a mass murdered and his wife.)

ITV has criticised "vindictive remarks" made by ex-footballer Joey Barton towards Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward.

Aluko was a pundit on ITV's coverage of the FA Cup third-round tie between Crystal Palace and Everton on Thursday, while Ward was the co-commentator.
Barton, 41, compared the pair to serial killers Fred and Rose West on X, formerly known as Twitter.

ITV said the former Manchester City and QPR player's comments were "contemptible and shameful".

In a statement on X, the broadcaster said: "For Joey Barton, an ex-professional player with a significant social media presence, to target two of our pundits, Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, with such vindictive remarks based on gender and to invoke the names of serial killers in doing so is clearly contemptible and shameful on his part.

Gary Neville called him out and Joey doubled down issuing some sort of thinly veiled threat to Neville.

https://x.com/GNev2/status/1743332860163952922?s=20

Well done ITV. It’s gone too far this and mentioning serial killers is quite simply incredible. My daughters have watched Salford City with me for 10 years and like to comment on football, my mum was kicked out of the football team ( boys in the 1960’s) and stopped playing due to mysogyny , my sister struggled for funding for her sport for years and my brother was mocked when he took over the England women’s team. I come from a family that has fought these issues for years and I’ve witnessed it first hand. All this does is just discourage and it’s not the way forward. It’s bloody hard work for Women to succeed in sport and media as it is without this stuff.

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743335074463170928?s=20

Gary, please keep your head down or you will get emptied as well. I know they pay your wages and I don’t want to have to put you away. Worry about one of the other 3758 business things you’ve got going on. I’ll decide when it’s gone too far. Not you.

If you read some of the comments on Twitter you'll see that Barton is attracting a lot of support from the kind of folk who have a Union Jack in their twitter handles. he's getting mucho support from little Englanders who not only hate women talking about men's football, but I imagine have issues with the current state of immigration - you know, blame the most unfortunate people for society's ills. It's never late state capitalism and war mongering and brexit and 13 years of Austerity no no no - it's always the immigrants. Joey is a See You etc...but he thinks he is a man of the people. Curious.

Anyway this is playing out in real time and i wonder how it ends for Joey. Cos we're not going to remove females (Pundits/Commentators) from the men's game and if Joey had half a working brain he'd know that that is for the best.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67897623

 

[bsj]

Embarassment as a former QPR player

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

He’s repulsive. Is the appetite for misogyny in football not reduced just a little by the results the senior women have achieved in the last five years? Maybe not ranked number 1, but they did bring a European Champiinship home and acquitted themselves pretty nicely in the World Cup. I guess from 5,000 miles away, I assumed that women in football would be celebrated in England right now.

 

[67YAZ]

Fuck Barton. He knows full well what he’s doing - going to pick up another 100k social media followers with this.

So let’s give Aluko a shout out. She was a truly great, great player - 102 caps for England, WSL hall of famer, 2x WSL team of the year, WSL golden boot, 4x FA Cup winner, 3x WSL winner, Serie A winner, Coppa Italia winner, and World Cup 3rd place. She knows the game at the highest levels, which doesn’t guarantee anything for a commentator, but she knows her shit.

 

[fletcherpost]

Barton is a man who tweets a lot so it took me time to find this one. I've pasted the text for those who seek to avoid clicking...cos to be fair Barton is one toxic MF. This is his respons to ITV the network who broadcast the FA Cup match.

https://x.com/Joey7Barton/status/1743327495301234831?s=20

Shut up you fucking idiots. Keep them off the tele. They’re ruining the game for everyone of us. It’s what happens when you force under qualified, under prepared, tokenistic people onto us. I will be calling them all serial killers from now on. Every clip you fuckers put out. Told you, I don’t care anymore. We’ve all had enough of your ‘Woke’, ‘DEI’ bullshit. I hope everyone who agrees with me, gets right after your social media every time you force this nonsense on us.

I tried to play nice, you didn’t listen.

One of my favourite players of all time is Kim Little. I remember watching all her games for Seattle Reign - i think she got off the plain, showed up for the match and got the winning goal - at least that'#s how i remember it. It was great to see her make such an impact of there - she socred an amzing hat trick one of the goal she beast about four players to score. Then she goes back to Arsenal and gets the armband. You listen to what her peers say about her and as a Scot you feel really proud. Little is very low key low profile and i wish and i hope she stays in the game, maybe one day a future coach of the Scotland Women's team.

And then you've got Barton, sucking air out of the firmamanent - and why, to what end? Just for clicks, and ears on a podcast???

 

[fletcherpost]

Fuck Barton. He knows full well what he’s doing - going to pick up another 100k social media followers with this.

So let’s give Aluko a shout out. She was a truly great, great player - 102 caps for England, WSL hall of famer, 2x WSL team of the year, WSL golden boot, 4x FA Cup winner, 3x WSL winner, Serie A winner, Coppa Italia winner, and World Cup 3rd place. She knows the game at the highest levels, which doesn’t guarantee anything for a commentator, but she knows her shit.

Here's the thing. I remember Alan Shearer when he first started as a pundit. He was terrible for a good couple of years but MOTD stuck with him. Gary Neville had the gumption to post his first show on Monday Night Football on Sky, he admits he got it all wrong including his choice of suit. You can find it somewhere - he stunk. But these male ex players were given time and media coached.

Aluko gets dogs abuse every time she's on the mic. Every mistake she makes goes viral. I think she has a law degree or something, she is super smart. Give her time to grow into the job, just like the countless male ex pros who get time.

 

[mikeford]

He was scum on the pitch and it's no surprise he's scum off of it.

 

[Seven Costanza]

I think he had a go at Emma Hayes a few weeks back as well- hilarious considering she's got more managerial talent in her index finger than he has in his entire body.

I'm pretty well versed in Joey Barton and his various past shenanigans, but I never knew his brother was given a life sentence for a "racially motivated murder". Apple, tree, etc.

 

[joe dokes]

They’re ruining the game for everyone of us. It’s what happens when you force under qualified, under prepared, tokenistic people onto us.

As always, every accusation is really a confession.

 

[tulse_luper]

He did a deep thinker sixth former who has learned x2 Nietzsche quotes reinvention a few years back. I remember one of the channels having him on in the studio for a London NFL game, twatting on about stuff he knew nowt about. It was obvious back then that this was where he would end up.

UK right wing media complex has a cushy vacancy for a Clay Travis of soccer, so presumably we've got that to look forward to now.

 

[Jimy Hendrix]

UK right wing media complex has a cushy vacancy for a Clay Travis of soccer, so presumably we've got that to look forward to now.

This is it, he's washed out of lower league management and I don't know how lucrative the right wing bullshit-sphere stuff is in the UK compared to the US but it's probably enough to keep him in gambling money with a lot less hard work than other post-playing careers.

 

[InstaFace]

I had not heard of Barton, much less heard from Barton... and from your summary, Fletch, it seems that had been a blessing.

Thankfully, he is swimming against the tide on this one. The number of male fans of women's football continues to increase, attendance is skyrocketing, the TV exposure of the women's game continues to ratchet up (WSL is currently in the market for their next deal, which should put them on much-improved financial footing), and female refs and coaches continue to make progress including within the men's game, as some fraction should when they're evaluated on merit and given the same paths to reach those spots. It matters not at all whether Joey Barton likes it, because it's happening, the country (and world) is voting with their wallets and their eyeballs, and he's powerless to do anything besides whine about it.

I'd rather spend time talking about Kim Little, who aside from being awesome may be among the most dramatically successful foreign imports to NWSL. One of four foreigners to win NWSL Player of the Year (in 2014), alongside names like Sam Kerr (who won it twice). Three POTY awards while at Arsenal. Stuck with the WSL and Arsenal in the days before the league was professional, when the creation of WPS in 2009 caused a lot of WSL players to jump over here, which probably helped spur the WSL towards its own reform in 2011 and eventual professionalization. IIRC she struck the decisive goal that gave Scotland their final win in World Cup qualifying, while Switzerland labored to a scoreless draw vs Poland, sending Scotland through and the Swiss to the playoffs. I need hardly remind Fletch, but the rest of us should recall that the 2019 WWC qualifiers from UEFA included each of the Big 5, the two Nordic superpowers of the women's game, the eventual world runners-up in the Dutch... and Scotland, chiefly thanks to Little's efforts. She would've been in contention for the Ballon D'Or Feminin if they had been awarding it in her prime. Someday they'll have a statue of her, long after the world will have forgotten whoever the hell Joey Barton was.

edit: Little knew a banger when she saw one queued up for her.

View: https://youtu.be/E8jSOv8Ch5s?t=4897


There weren't many Scots who belonged on the field against that USA team that night, but you don't have to watch much of that game to see which of them the US actually respected and sent help for - pretty much just Little and Lisa Evans.

 

[rguilmar]

Barton was a brutish a-hole as a player and still is as a person. He has an impressive arrest record, including assaulting teammates, leaving one unconscious and if memory serves putting a lit cigarette out in another’s eye. He has assaulted teenagers. He has assaulted women, including kicking his wife in the head. Nothing he says now is surprising.

Of course, in the past he has spoken out in support of gay rights when not many others did, as well as his concern that managers would discriminate against any openly gay players.

 

[wallythe24]

JB is a nobody bell end trying his hardest to attract attention.
Only a numpty like him would describe his own brother's racist motivated murder ( with his cousin ) of Anthony Walker in 2005 as " a scrap ".
Hopefully , very soon he'll be banished from public life altogether.

 

[fletcherpost]

This is funny.

I guess Joey has had people trolling him saying they'd send him money cos this is why he's doing what he's doing, so Joey, classy as ever said you can send any money to mybigfathairyarsehole.com

so someone has set up a web page called mybigfathairyarsehole.com with links to some of Barton's less than stellar moments.

https://x.com/I_amMukhtar/status/1744765970550321596?s=20

https://mybigfathairyarsehole.com/

The Uk Goverment Sports Minister has now weighed in on the issue

Former footballer Joey Barton's social media tirade against women working in the men's game is "not acceptable", says sports minister Stuart Andrew.
He added that Barton's rants on X are "dangerous comments that open the floodgates for abuse".
Andrew went on to say he will speak to social media companies about how such issues can be addressed.
Barton last week compared two female commentators and pundits to serial killers Fred and Rose West.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67927405