Joey Barton deserves the label of “enfant terrible” of English football. From his devastating tackles to his uncontrollable slips, the former midfielder will have constantly flirted with the red line during his career. The general public remembers his sporting escapades, like this terrible attack in 2007 when he beat his own teammate at Manchester City, Frenchman Ousmane Dabo, during a training session. A slip-up which ended in legal proceedings, foreshadowing a long series of problems with British justice.
Far from softening his character, the end of his career in 2017, which ended under the colors of Burnley, only shifted his aggressiveness to other areas. Joey Barton first became a controversial and incendiary figure on social networks. Multiplying misogynistic outings, hateful comments and ad hominem attacks against consultants or football players, he was left without a new appearance in court. In December 2025, the British courts sentenced him to a six-month suspended prison sentence for his online excesses.
A liability that has caused him to sleep in prison since last winter. This time the fault lies in a violent attack, which occurred on March 8, following an evening at the Huyton and Prescot golf club, in Fairway. Joey Barton is said to have consumed alcohol there in the company of Kevin Lynch, 51, a local figure in amateur football and founder of the NexGen Academy. The evening would then have descended into incredible violence. The former Olympian is accused of having deliberately and savagely beaten his interlocutor, inflicting serious bodily harm, including a very serious injury to one eye.
A trial scheduled for next March
During a hearing held by videoconference before Judge David Porter, the former Manchester City midfielder, now aged 44, saw his new request for release on bail rejected. Kept in pre-trial detention, the former England international now knows what to expect: he will remain locked up at least until his trial, postponed to March 8, 2027 by the Liverpool Crown Court.
Although he pleaded not guilty and contested all the charges against him, the British courts ruled in favor of caution, refusing to grant him any supervised release. Due to the postponement of his hearing, Barton could accumulate almost a full year of pretrial detention before he can truly defend his version of the facts during a trial scheduled to last two weeks.
