Joey Barton is a walking circus. Pure and simple.
We’re watching the end of his football career, right before our eyes, because it’s absolutely inconceivable that it can survive what’s happening to it. This is the Final Act, the last gasp, and he’s wearing the Sevco shirt as we get to it. You would be forgiven for thinking this ties into their own long running soap opera but it doesn’t, not really, except that they are the only Scottish club that would sign this guy expecting a different result.
Barton says we tried to. Which is one of the most absurd suggestions I’ve ever heard in my life. Colin Kazim-Richards came here with a reputation for being a bad-boy, but that was only on the pitch. We’re talking about a guy who’s done time, who has caused mayhem wherever he’s been, a guy who wouldn’t have got into our team besides.
There is no earthly way Celtic would ever have sanctioned such a move.
Peter Lawwell flatly denied it this morning. He said Barton’s agent asked to talk to us as the Sevco deal was nearing completion. Lawwell thinks the player was a victim of some mischief making in the background. I think Peter is being magnanimous, more so than this situation deserves. I suspect Barton did want a move to Celtic Park, and would have preferred it over Ibrox. It would explain the speed with which he’s embraced the Ibrox “culture.”
There’s no zealot like a convert, and especially not one who’s been snubbed.
Still, it’s one way to try and sell books, even if does elevate the text into the category of fiction.
We can move on from that.
The news that he’s being investigated for gambling on the Barcelona game is a much more serious affair and assures there’ll be a ban on top of his suspension. It’ll probably be a one game slap on the wrist, but events are conspiring to assure we don’t see him much before Christmas. I think we can say, with some surety, that the clock is running down on his Ibrox “career” which has been every bit as self-destructive as I’d have guessed.
There’s a much more interesting element to the betting thing than the prospect of a ban.
He’ll be the third player from Ibrox to be investigated by the SFA and charged on this issue. Now maybe it’s just me who thinks that’s an awful lot of footballers from one club to be brought up on a charge that’s not all that common although the issue is said to be.
It makes you wonder if there’s someone in that dressing room with a big mouth, and a penchant for dropping his fellow professionals in it. Perhaps petty arguments with this person are not to be advised. I might be wrong, but I would imagine a lot of professional footballers had a wee punt on the outcome of that game – and on a lot of games.
I just wonder how that information found its way to the SFA, in such short order.
If I had to guess I’d say someone in the Ibrox dressing room leaked it to them.
I was going to write yesterday that the Scottish media are hypocrites over the way they’ve handled the Barton carry-on, and they are. It’s almost like they’ve only just discovered that this guy is a ned and can’t be trusted. None of that was a secret. Their sudden discovery that he’s a loose cannon, a bomb just waiting to go off, comes a little late in the day.
Still, he helped sell season tickets whilst the good press lasted, and I suppose that really was the main purpose behind it.
It kept the manager in post a while longer than probably he would have liked, because it’s pretty well known that he considered “walking away” but was brought back by that signing and the promise of other “high profile names.”
Well, it’s worked out well, right?
Barton has been anonymous on the pitch but certainly not off of it. Kranjcar ought to get himself a social media account, because it’s the only way his stint in Scotland would be remembered for anything when he’s gone.
The Barton saga continues to roll on, but attempting to drag our club into this mess was a step I didn’t expect. Lawwell has nipped this one in the nuts, but don’t bet on it (haha no pun intended) being the last word on this.
If Barton’s planning his next book, he’s off to an excellent start.