The FA have suspended Joey Barton for twelve games and fined him £75,000 following the Queens Park Rangers midfielder's actions during the final match of the season against Manchester City. Barton, obviously, wasn't very well behaved, and he admitting to elbowing Carlos Tevez in the face (a four game ban) as well as kneeing Sergio Aguero for no reason whatsoever (five games).
The Best Thing The FA Have Ever Done
But he did contest his 'attempted' headbutt on City captain Vincent Kompany, claiming, somewhat amusingly, that Joleon Lescott was attempting to push his head into the Belgian's. The FA were nonplussed by this defence, and their response to Barton might well have been the best thing they've ever done:
[Barton] could not give a satisfactory answer to the Commission when he was asked why Mr Lescott would use Mr Barton’s head as a weapon to attack his own team mate Mr Kompany, which could have caused him injury sufficient for him to leave the field of play and maybe be substituted in their most important match of the Premier League season. Further in doing that Mr Lescott risked being dismissed himself.
The Commission found this line of defence to be unconvincing.
I don’t think anyone could possibly have written that first sentence with a straight face. Well done, FA.
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