10 football players with criminal records

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Joey Barton

Football players are supposed to be model professionals and behave as such so that they are well respected both on and off the pitch. They are characters meant to be emulated by the old and the young, right?

Not if you consider this lot! With all due respect to their skills and talent on the pitch, they have not exactly been on their best behaviour off the pitch. Here is a list of 10 players who have been arrested at least once in their career.

Joey Barton

Perhaps one of the most controversial players in modern day football, Joey Barton is known more for his violent behaviour (both on and off the pitch) than his skills on a football pitch. Once a winner of the Young Player of the Year award at Manchester City; Barton’s career went downhill due to many altercations. From hacking opposition players, to poking a teammate’s eye with a lit cigar, to breaking a pedestrian’s leg, it is a long list of offences that has ruined his reputation.

The first time Barton was convicted was after a brutal assault in Liverpool. After having drunk a lot of lager (more than 10 pints), he got into an altercation with some youths in a restaurant which culminated in Barton knocking a man to the ground, straddling him and punching him over and over again. He then attacked a teenager by punching him and even breaking his teeth. Barton was sentenced to six months in jail for the “violent and cowardly act”. However, he served only two and a half months of this sentence and was released.

The second sentence was four months long after he admitted to assaulting his teammate Ousmane Dabo at the Manchester City training ground. Dabo had pressed charges against Barton after Dabo was struck from behind and then repeatedly struck in the face while he was on the ground, leading him to lose consciousness and suffer a detached retina. Barton also had to do 200 hours of community service and was even banned by the FA.

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