Yes, who is Joey Barton indeed?

Being a Brazil's fan for more years than I care to disclose, I was naturally attracted by this headline:

Joey Barton tries to ignite Neymar row by branding him ‘Justin Bieber of football’

For football fans there is no need to introduce Neymar, a brilliant 21 yrs old that scored four goals in four games in Confederations Cup and took the Golden Ball award for best player. He may not be a new Pele yet, but he is certainly headed the right way, and his move to play in Barcelona, arguably one of the best football clubs in the world, is another confirmation of that.

Apparently there is a British football player called Joseph (Joey) Barton. Here is the Wiki summary of his career so far:

He began his football career with Manchester City in 2002 after working his way through their youth system. His appearances in the senior side gradually increased over the following five years and he made more than 150 for the club. He earned his first cap for the England national team in February 2007, despite his criticism of some of the team's players. He then joined Newcastle United for a fee of £5.8 million in July 2007. After four years with the Magpies, he joined Queens Park Rangers in August 2011, from where he was loaned to Marseille in 2012.

So he is a fairly respectable representative of the British football, although somewhat down the hill in his career path, it looks like.

And you would be wrong, cause there is another side to Joey's talents: a small time brawler with a big mouth. His Wiki entry reads like an endless rap sheet of a chronic hooligan. If you are interested, peruse it, I shall only quote the summary in the beginning of this Wiki entry:

His career and life have been marked by numerous controversial incidents and disciplinary problems and he has been convicted twice on charges of violence. On 20 May 2008 he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for common assault and affray during an incident in Liverpool City Centre. Barton served 77 days of this prison term, being released on 28 July 2008. On 1 July 2008 he was also given a four months suspended sentence after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm on former teammate Ousmane Dabo during a training ground dispute on 1 May 2007. This incident effectively ended his Manchester City career. Barton has been charged with violent conduct three times by The Football Association: for the assault on Dabo, for punching Morten Gamst Pedersen in the stomach and for attacking three players on the final day of the 2011–12 season.

His achievements as a footballer are easily overshadowed by his career of a violent roughneck, and there is so much more in that Wiki litany of the deranged brawler's "achievements"...

And, as I mentioned, he has a big mouth too, assisted now by the modern convenience of Twitter, were he is badmouthing anyone who seems to disrespect him. Characteristically, his Twitter masthead says:

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

No, no one in his right mind could blame Joey in excess of education (not that one is necessarily expected of a ball player). And judging by his bio, he could hardly be taught anything. Anyway, his obsession with Neymar was triggered by quite an innocent confession from the latter: he simply didn't know who exactly Joey Barton is... that's all, but it was enough to cause the following:

I’ll introduce myself to him if he ever decides to leave the sanctuary of the amazon jungle league…

Yeah, amazon jungle league indeed. Wasn't British football humiliated enough during the last, say, thirty years, to become more respectful to various "amazon jungle leagues"? One would assume that it was. And coming from an insignificant germ like Joey Barton, who faithfully represents the ugliest of the ugly of British football hooligans, the attacks on a player of Neymar's caliber look simply pathetic. But this is what Joey Barton is - pathetic.