Seems he had quite a few offers... http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/footba...ked-last-minute-joey-barton-bid#ixzz25c08VyRl
i dislike the french as much as the next man(unless of course the next man is DT) but what the **** did marseille do to deserve barton
Apparently Chilleure-aux-Bois under 14s were after him until the local league pointed out that "Under 14" means physical age and not mental age.
This is the right way to decide if a player should be signed: 'We had five minutes of consultations about Barton, but we agreed we could not take the risk,' Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas told Canal Plus. 'We have certain guidelines within the club, agreed with our sponsors and partners. We could not take him.' If we'd done the same we wouldn't have ended up in this mess, and saved a lot of money along the way.
Nice welcome for Joey: http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/oddballs/910516-joey-barton-is-marseilles-sweet-and-tender-hooligan
I once spent five minutes wondering if I should join the Antarctic Survey but managed to figure out that it was a crazy notion without a host of sponsors and partners threatening me... I still can't bring myself to hate Barton but haven't lost sleep since he left either.