Queens Park Rangers' Joey Barton has been suspended for
12-matches and fined £75,000 by the Football Association following a
hearing at Wembley Stadium.
The FA reached their verdict after a
day of delierbation by the three-man independent disciplinary panel,
chaired by Brian Jones who sat on the panel that handed an eight match
ban to Liverpool's Luiz Suarez after he racially abused Patrice Evra
last season.
Barton cut short his family holiday in Portugal to attend and had
called on experienced barrister Nick de Marco who argued the player was
provoked.
The 29-year-old was sent off for elbowing Carlos Tevez to the ground
early in the second half of Manchester City's Premier League
title-winning game .
The QPR midfielder then compounded the offence by felling the City
striker Sergio Aguero in the aftermath, before appearing to aim a
head-butt at City defender Vincent Kompany.
The FA will punish Barton with an automatic four-match ban for the
sending off and have charged the player with two counts of violent
conduct for the other incidents.
Barton accepted the charge for his action against Aguero but had denied violent conduct against Kompany.
In a statement, the FA said: "Following Barton's dismissal in the 54th minute of the
match, there followed two incidents involving Manchester City's Sergio
Aguero and Vincent Kompany. As Barton had already been dismissed, both
of these incidents fell outside the jurisdiction of the referee.
"Barton accepted the charge of violent conduct against Aguero but
denied the second breach of violent conduct against Kompany. The
independent regulatory commission, however, found this second charge
proved.
"Barton is already serving a four-match suspension for his dismissal
in the match, which consists of three matches for violent conduct plus
one match as this was the player's second dismissal of the season.
"The two further breaches for violent conduct ordered he be suspended
for eight matches to run consecutively to the four matches, taking the
total suspension to 12 matches."
The FA's regulatory panel had discretionary powers to further
increase the length of the suspension if charges were found to be
proven.
Barton's admission on Twitter that his violent actions were a cynical
ploy to provoke a City player to be sent off saw those discretionary
powers employed.
He insisted via Twitter on the day of his sending-off that he had not
lost his head, but that a team-mate "suggested I should try to take 1
of theirs with me".
Barton has three years to run on his reported £90,000-a-week salary
at Loftus Road but the club will think long and hard about what
reputational damage he has done to the West London club.
Speaking earlier this month, QPR chairman Tony Fernandes said: "There
are experienced people who will come back to me and we'll review the
whole situation.
"Joey has been an integral part of the club and has played his part.
This is football, and I'm new to it. I don't profess to have all the
answers."
The former Newcastle United player appears to have attempted to turn
his life around since he was sent to prison in 2008 for a drunken attack
in Liverpool during a night out.
He has become outspoken on Twitter, often quoting the philosopher
Nietzsche among others, but his tweeting has also descended sporadically
into written attacks.
He barracked both Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker on the social
networking site for criticising him after the events at the Etihad
Stadium. In the recent past, the FA itself has warned Barton over some
of his activities on Twitter.
No matter how much he might try to step away from his bad boy image,
the Huyton-born footballer will not be allowed to forget his troubled
past.
He attacked a Manchester City youth player, Jamie Tandy, in 2004,
stubbing a cigar in the player's eye. In 2007, he attacked then fellow
Manchester City player Ousmane Dabo from behind during a training ground
spat.
The longest ban of recent times was the 11-match suspension handed
down to Paolo di Canio in 1998 for pushing over a match referee.
