Former English footballer Joey Barton, who notably played for Manchester City or Olympique de Marseille (2012-2013) in Ligue 1, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison for having published “seriously offensive” messages on social networks.
The sentence made public Monday by a Liverpool court would turn into a firm conviction if the 43-year-old former midfielder, whose run-ins with the law are numerous, were to reoffend in the next eighteen months.
On November 7, a jury ruled that Barton had “crossed the line between freedom of expression and crime” in six publications on X targeting British presenter Jeremy Vine and two commentators, Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.
2.5 million subscribers on
In one of the publications for which he was convicted, during a televised FA Cup match in January 2024 between Crystal Palace and Everton, he called Ward and Aluko the “Fred and Rose West of football commentary”, in allusion to two of Britain’s most notorious serial killers.
He also published a message likening Aluko, a former England international, to “the category of Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot”, accusing her of having “murdered the ears of hundreds of thousands, even millions of football fans”. The court did not condemn him for the comparison, but for the illustration which accompanied his message.
The ex-footballer with 2.5 million subscribers on X was also condemned for a publication in which he wrote that Aluko, born in Nigeria, had only been recruited in the name of ethnic diversity.
In another of his messages, the former Marseillais established an analogy between the presenter Jeremy Vine and the American sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Joey Barton, acquitted of six other charges, was released on bail pending sentencing on Monday.
