Joey Barton was involved in a training ground bust up with former Manchester City team mate Ousmane Dabo in 2007 that ended with Dabo severely injured and Joey banned for six matches and hit with a four month suspended sentence for assault.
Joey has now lifted the lid on the whole situation with the two sides claiming a completely version of events. Barton has now offered Dabo a way to settle it all for charity in the boxing ring like ‘Jake Paul’.
Speaking on Robbie Fowler’s Podcast which has been quoted by The Sun, the former midfielder revealed what really happened on that training ground in 2007.
14 years later and Joey still claims he knocked out Dabo in self defence, do you believe him?
“Dabo slapped me at the training ground so he got put a kip.
“That was his own fault and if I see him any time and he wants to – you see all these Jake Pauls and that on Youtube, if Ousmane wants to give me a shout and he wants to do it for charity and get his own back…
“At the end of the day, where I’m from, if someone open palms or slaps you or comes towards you to hit you, you don’t stand around and go ‘I’ll see what he’s doing, I’ll see if this dig hurts me.’
“On a football pitch I’ve been hit by people and just got on with it as that’s the way it is or I’ve had to be separated, I reckon 25 or 30 times.
“I’ve seen multiple fights on training grounds that have been kept within the confines of the training ground.
“But Ousmane went out the next day because he knew he couldn’t have done anything about it.
“All his mates were there, Distin’s and all that. After I’d knocked him out, and bear in mind he’d threw the first dig and got knocked out, [Stuart] Pearce separated us.
“So I said ‘Look, no problem. If he wants round two we’ll sort it out here, we’re all men.’
“He tried to throw the first punch, came unstuck, and he didn’t because he’s a s***bag and went to the papers.”
Barton used serious words when calling the Frenchman a ‘s***bag’ for ratting him out. Should Dabo have left the fight on the pitch or was he right to complain?
The fight left Dabo with cuts, bruises and a detached retina as can be seen in the picture above.
Dabo told the Sun after the fight:
“I looked at myself in the mirror with my face all swollen up and I looked like the Elephant Man.
“I just pushed him away and turned my back to walk off. That’s when he hit me.
“I really don’t remember exactly what happened but I’ve been told by all my team-mates he hit me from behind, a right hook which hit me on the temple and knocked me out for a few seconds.
“As I started to fall he jumped on top of me, held my head and punched me twice more in the face.”
Barton denied Dabo’s version of events and stated that this was the reason he had to leave Manchester CIty which affected his whole career.
“He put a plaster over his eye and got his bird to take a picture of him and went to the papers and said he got hit from behind.
“Every single man on that training ground knows he never got it from behind.
“He came and threw a punch, I thought, but it turns out he opened his palm at the end and slapped me and as it hit me I’d already let my jab off – unfortunately for him I am a better scrapper than him and he becomes a kip.
“What should have happened is that should have been it and it never and it ultimately ended up in me leaving Man City.
“I just felt I had loadsa scrapes at City and felt it was time for a change.”
Should Dabo accept his offer of a charity fight? Who would win?