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Joey Barton appeared to call England women\u2019s manager Sarina Wiegman \u2018Sandra\u2019 in a car-crash interview with Piers Morgan. Having caused an online furore with controversial tweets about women football pundits, Barton was offered the opportunity to elaborate on Talk TV in an interview that descended into a farce.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday, Barton split opinion with a series of social media posts about women football pundits over a 12-hour period. His initial post on X read: “Women shouldn’t be talking with any kind of authority in the men’s game. Come on. Let’s be serious.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Barton was encouraged to elaborate on his views on journalist Morgan\u2019s chat show. The 41-year-old began: “When you say what you are thinking it can lead to a reaction. I’ve seen in my game where – I do feel I have enough credibility to say I\u2019m a bonafide expert – I\u2019ve seen tokenism creeping in, and it\u2019s ruining my experience and the journalistic standards. It\u2019s nothing to do with sexism at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a lengthy interview in which Barton\u2019s argument became increasingly unclear, he called England women\u2019s head coach Wiegman \u2018Sandra\u2019 and said women\u2019s pundits offer \u201cfactually incorrect information\u201d. On one occasion, the former Manchester City and Newcastle midfielder was reminded to answer the question being asked by Morgan.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI\u2019m against tokenism and poor journalistic standards, especially when it comes to football. I know it\u2019s everyone\u2019s game but there\u2019s different variants with the men\u2019s and women\u2019s game. And all of a sudden if you speak out in favour of saying a \u2018men\u2019s game\u2019…I\u2019ve been accused of being right-wing just for saying what a lot are thinking about journalistic standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to be there on merit, not to fit this woke agenda that is going on in society. You don\u2019t have to have played the game, a lot of managers haven\u2019t, a lot of commentators haven\u2019t. But they\u2019ve earned the right with hard work over a prolonged period of time to get into that space,” Barton continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it helps if you\u2019ve played at a high level because it gives you a unique perspective. There are similarities between both sports but the men\u2019s game is played at a completely different speed and completely different skill set.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for someone to stand there and say \u2018I would have done that\u2019 or \u2018he\u2019s made a mistake there\u2019 who have no experience of that – and it\u2019s not just one or two, it\u2019s being taken over and ruining the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is the men\u2019s game. I don\u2019t want to come across as sexist, I want women in the men\u2019s game. At Bristol Rovers we had #HerGameToo which was a great initiative to get women in stadiums, but if we\u2019re going to talk technical nuances and to educate the audience, then we must do that with the most credible people. Not people who tick boxes or fill quotas.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second half of the interview, Barton engaged in a row with former Sky Sports reporter Bianca Westwood, who worked for the station for 22 years. Morgan and Westwood both invited an increasingly irritated Barton to name a woman pundit with whom he takes exception. However, Barton insisted that he would not do so.<\/p>\n