Club Considers Barton's Future!
By Tyne-Talk
June 8 2008
Jailed midfielder Joey Barton's future at Newcastle United is hanging in the balance as the club begin to make moves to decide whether to sack him or not. Barton who moved to the club in a £5.5million deal under former manager Sam Allardyce is currently serving time for Assault and Affray and has another hearing pending for an incident involving former team-mate Ousmane Dabo later in June.
For Barton the hearing regarding Dabo will be his third separate court hearing since he joined Newcastle last summer, the second being alleged criminal damage of a taxi, of which Barton was cleared last month.
The Sunday tabloids are reporting that unless the 25 year old takes a dramatic 50% paycut he will have his contract terminated.
Chris Mort has made an official statement regarding the situation in which he says:
"We are in discussions with his representatives about what is best for the club going forward.
Obviously, we are not going to ignore the fact that he is currently in jail.
It is too early to say whether Joey being sacked is a possible outcome but we are talking about what the future holds."