Alan Brazil: He was naive and stupid – but Joey Barton will bounce back

JOEY BARTON thought he was playing for small stakes while betting on football matches.

It turned out he was gambling with his career.

The 18-month ban handed down to Joey by the FA after he admitted placing over 1200 football bets will effectively usher the 34-year-old into retirement.

But as much as I like him as a person, I’ve got limited sympathy for Barton over his brush with the bookies.

He has been a very silly boy – and not for the first time.

As a professional footballer, Joey knew he wasn’t allowed to bet on football, but he did it anyway.

At best, that was naïve. At worst, it was stupid.

Joey has held his hands up and admitted he made a mistake. For that he should be commended.

But he should have known better.

Fair enough, his bets – at least the ones he made public – were not life-changing, big- money flutters.

Some were for a few hundred quid, but many were for a stake of only two or three pounds!

For a professional footballer earning 30-40 grand every week, that’s nothing.

Joey has argued the FA should have been more lenient as a result.

After all, the major reason football players aren’t allowed to bet on the game is because they are in a position to influence the outcome.

In 99.9% of Barton’s bets, that was clearly not the case.

Even if it were, it would have been worth a pittance to him to do so.

He wasn’t trying to make big bucks with his bets. He was only adding a bit of extra spice to a game he was watching.

But for me that’s only a partial mitigation because the rules were broken.

Joey has argued that he has been fighting a gambling addiction and I understand that.

Professional footballers – especially at his level – have a lot of free time and even more money.

For some, including Barton, that becomes a problem, and he should be applauded for coming clean and seeking help.

If he emerges from this sad episode in control of his compulsion to bet, it will at least have served some purpose.

But the fact remains that Joey was punished because he broke a set of rules he knew were there.

What were the FA supposed to do?

Now, let’s not kid ourselves on. Joey Barton is not the only professional footballer to have bet on football.

I’m not going to name names, but I know that for a fact.

The difference is that, unlike Joey, most who do it get somebody to do it on their behalf.

That doesn’t make what they do correct, but it does make them much harder to catch.

That’s where naivety comes into play in Joey’s case.

He has made a series of mistakes and the repair bill will be hefty.

But Joey knows better than most how to rebuild a reputation – and I reckon he has enough goodwill in the bank to pull it off.