Former Manchester City player Joey Barton has come under backlash for his recent comments regarding women in football. The recently sacked Bristol Rovers coach has gone viral for his insensitive and sexist views about what he believes to be wrong with modern-day football.
In a recent tweet, Barton directed his anger at Georgia Hampson, the social media manager of Manchester City for a mistake she made in one of the videos she did for the club’s official Instagram account.
Hampson in her vlog for the Manchester City and RB Leipzig match commented that City were already up 3-1 on aggregate. But, in reality, aggregate scores don’t apply for group-stage matches, only knockouts. However, instead of pointing out the mistake, Barton went on to condemn all women and their opinions on men’s football.
Both men and women, who work in football along with fans have collectively condemned Barton’s outrageous comments that can only be deemed as plain misogyny.
He then doubled down on his comments by repeating and taking them too far in an interview with Piers Morgan. He took shots at Alex Scott, former Arsenal player and England International. He said Scott is not qualified to talk about men’s football as she hasn’t played the men’s game.
This is a bizarre comparison but in contrast, Alex Scott has more titles and accomplishments than Barton. People on Twitter believe that his losing the managerial position at Bristol Rovers and his lack of further prospects are reasons behind this downward spiral.
Laura Woods of TNT Sports came to the defence of the Manchester City social media manager, as Laura herself began as a vlogger. Karla Threlfall, one of Manchester City’s presenters, responded sarcastically that Barton might be right about women not knowing about men’s football as her favourite player used to be Barton.
Natalie Pike, another presenter for Manchester City came to defend her fellow City colleague Hampson and the incredible work she does for Man City’s social media.
Barton made things even worse by comparing women talking about men’s football to himself talking about knitting and netball. This comparison exposed the misogynistic and archaic concepts of gender roles in Barton’s mind. Women have worked so hard to escape from such stereotypical outlook and Barton is rallying up support from misogynists on Twitter.
Women’s football may not receive the same number of eyeballs as men’s football but the physical and mental pressure are equally as difficult.
It is the knowledge of the game that is important and not the close-minded opinions of bitter former players. Barton recently made headlines for defending a murder his brother committed. So, he has been on a downward spiral for some time.
