Joey Barton attacks ITV’s FA Cup third-round punditry team with a sick taunt about Eni Aluko and commentator Lucy Ward, as he claims their coverage reached ‘a new low’

Joey Barton has sparked fury with his latest attack on female pundits as he compared Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West. 

The former Man City and Newcastle midfielder has been intensely criticised in recent weeks for a series of sexist barbs against women, who he claims ‘aren’t qualified’ to talk about men’s football. 

Now he has taken aim at former Chelsea and England star Aluko and Ward, an ex-footballer turned commentator, over their coverage of yesterday’s FA Cup third-round clash between Crystal Palace and Everton for ITV. 

Addressing Aluko, he wrote on X: ‘How is she even talking about Men’s football. She can’t even kick a ball properly. Your coverage of the game EFC last night, took it to a new low. Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward, the Fred and Rose West of football commentary.’

The Wests murdered 12 women and young girls over the course of 20 years in what became known as the Moors Murders. Fred took his own life before facing trial while Rose was sentenced to 10 life terms. She remains in prison aged 70. 

Barton’s tweet immediately prompted a string of angry replies, with one user asking whether it was possible for him to ‘sink any lower’. A second wrote: ‘Comparing a football commentator with serial killers to score points. That’s an evil thing to do.’ 

Another X user, Nicky O’Grady, added: ‘Comparing them to two of the most horrific serial killers is a new low even for your standards.’ 

Barton wasn’t done there as he posted another message of abuse aimed at Aluko in response to her taking shots at a goalkeeper in training.

‘Technically, that’s awful,’ he said. ‘She can’t move without her legs rubbing together. You have to laugh. She’s 18 yds out and can’t reach the goal without a bounce! 

‘F***ing pathetic. Get them off the Men’s Football. Off the tele. Only there to tick boxes. DEI is a load of s**t. Affirmative action. 

‘All off the back of the BLM/George Floyd nonsense. Cancel me, I’d don’t care anymore.’ 

The 41-year-old convicted criminal has savaged female pundits such as Alex Scott and Bianca Westwood in social media tirades across the last month.

On Boxing Day Barton took aim at Amazon Prime Video Sport for including former Liverpool goalkeeper Rachel Brown-Finnis as a pundit for their 2-0 win over Burnley, saying her inclusion was ‘nonsense’ and ‘tokenism’.

It is not the first time he has taken aim at a goalkeeper. 

He boasted that he would score ‘100 out of 100 penalties’ against Mary Earps after she won the Sports Personality of the Year Award earlier this month. 

Barton also called it ‘dangerous’ for women to work at men’s clubs due to them ‘having full-blown affairs and costing people marriages’.

Barton went on Piers Morgan Uncensored to double down on his comments, explaining that he did not want to be seen promoting sexism, but that he was against ‘unqualified opinions’.

‘I don’t want to see sexism in football, but if we don’t debate (the role of women in football broadcasting) properly, this is just going to rise and rise, and ruin the experience of watching elite-level men’s football,’ Barton said when asked by Morgan if the language of his social media posts had been deliberately inflammatory.

‘Everywhere you turn now, there’s an unqualified opinion pontificating about the sport I love, and it’s ruining my experience – to fuel this woke agenda, and it’s going to increase sexism massively, because it has to be a true meritocracy. We have to have people who are qualified to do those roles.

‘There’s a lot of similarities between both sports, but the men’s game is played at a completely different speed, with a different skillset needed. 

‘For someone to stand there and say “I would have done this”, or “He’s made a mistake” – who have no experience of that…

‘It’s not just one or two, it (football broadcasting has) been taken over. I don’t want to come across as sexist, I’ve got a wonderful wife, wonderful daughter, grandmother. 

‘We want it to be diverse and inclusive, but it’s got to be credible.’

It was Barton’s initial tweet that caused outrage, insisting he ‘couldn’t take a thing they say seriously’ if it’s in the men’s arena. 

He wrote: ‘Women shouldn’t be talking with any kind of authority in the men’s game. Come on. Let’s be serious. It’s a completely different game. If you don’t accept that. We will always see things differently. The women’s game is thriving. Fantastic to see. I cannot take a thing they say serious in the men’s arena.’

Barton’s posts come after he had previously thrown his support behind the #HERGAMETOO initiative – a campaign which aims to fight against sexism in sport.

Barton posed with a promotional card for the cause when he was Bristol Rovers manager.

It’s just the latest in a long string of controversies, which has seen ‘bad boy’ Barton jailed for assault and branded a ‘sexist’ for his online rants against female pundits commenting on the ‘beautiful game’. 

Former Manchester City and Newcastle star Barton was blasted earlier this month after he demanded Lioness hero Alex Scott ‘shouldn’t commentate on the men’s game’, during an outburst on X – formerly Twitter. 

His ‘sexist’ tirade included saying female football pundits commenting on the men’s game was the same as him ‘talking about knitting or netball’ – as he branded those who disagreed with him as ‘fart parcels’ and ‘eunuchs’. 

It’s far from the first time he has sparked controversy, though. In 2004 Barton jabbed a cigar in the eye of fellow Man City squad member Jason Tandy during a boozy Christmas do. 

Barton said his outburst was sparked after youth star Tandy provoked him, setting fire to his T-shirt in the run-up to the scuffle, which led to the footballing bad-boy being fined six weeks’ wages and an apology to despondent boss Kevin Keegan. 

Speaking last month about the incident, Barton told the Anything Goes With James English podcast. ‘We were on the booze all day Sunday morning, and I think Paul Bosvelt or [Robbie] Fowler started it. They were all in fancy dress in this bar and started setting each other’s costumes alight.

‘So it was the seniors who started it, just burning the edge of it. In five or 10 minutes it went round the whole group and then it stopped.

‘I’d burned Tandy’s costume. Someone had got me, and then I’d burned Tandy back – no malice in it. He didn’t have the opportunity to get me back, everything gets calmed down, lighters are confiscated off everybody by the security.’

Four years later and Barton found himself yet again under the spotlight after a training ground brawl with ex-teammate, Ousmane Dabo, which saw wannabe hardman Barton slapped with a six-match ban by the FA in 2008.

Hot-headed Barton left the Frenchman distraught after pummeling him, leaving the wounded football star feeling like the ‘Elephant Man’ due to the swelling on his face.

Barton admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm after Dabo was left with cuts and bruises as well as a detached retina, and given a four-month suspended sentence. 

Speaking to The Sun after the attack, Dabo said: ‘When I woke up this morning I looked at myself in the mirror with my face all swollen up and I looked like the Elephant Man.

‘I’ve never known anything like this before in my career.’

That same year, Barton was sentenced to six months behind bars for common assault and affray following an incident in Liverpool city centre.

It came after a furious Barton was caught on CCTV punching a man 20 times and breaking a teenager’s teeth.  

The one-time England star was already on bail over an allegation of criminal damage involving a Liverpool taxi driver and the earlier fight with Dabo, when the book was thrown at him for his violent attack. 

He was convicted of assault and served 77 days in prison.

Barton has been as fiery on the pitch as off it. In 2012, he was slapped with a 12-game ban after elbowing Carlos Tevez in the throat during Premier League clash between his new team QPR and former side Man City. 

He also kicked out at Sergio Aguero, before a red card was shown and he squared up to Vincent Kompany and Mario Balotelli as he left the pitch. 

As well as his ‘sexist’ rants against female pundits on social media, Barton has also clashed heads with his male counter-parts online, too. 

Following Barton’s sending off and ban during that chaotic 2012 clash, Match of the Day pundits Alan Shearer, Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker blasted his behaviour. 

Not happy with their scathing critic, Barton took to Twitter and wrote: ‘I’d take it off Hansen and @GaryLineker but not from that bell, same fella that stamped on Neil Lennon,then threatened FA if they banned him.”

He added: ‘I really don’t like that p****, in fact I honestly despise him… Goodnight.’

Lineker later defended Shearer, responding: ‘Still raging then? Still kicking out? And still, presumably, misunderstood? But only by yourself I suspect.’

To which bitter Barton responded, calling the former England captain an ‘odious little toad’.

In October last year, Barton was cleared of assaulting his wife after a judge ruled he could not have a fair trial because prosecutors would not call her to give evidence.

The ex-Premier League midfielder, was accused of pushing Georgia Barton, 36, to the floor before kicking her during a drunken row at their home in in Kew, south-west London on June 2, 2021.

Mrs Barton, who is said to have been left with a golf-ball sized bruise on her forehead and a bleeding nose, was ‘audibly upset and shaken’, when she dialled 999 just before 11.15pm, Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court heard.

‘My husband has just hit me in the house,’ she said, telling the call handler she had been left with a ‘bloody nose’ after Barton hit her ‘just in the face’, before officers arrived at the scene within 25 minutes.

Body-worn footage played in court captured Mrs Barton saying: ‘I was pushed and kicked about and stuff.’The officer noted ‘a bit of a lump and some blood’, while speaking to a female officer in a utility room around five minutes later, Mrs Barton said her husband ‘just flipped out’ and ‘threw me down’.

 

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