Nike Terminates Barton Contract
Nike has terminated its sponsorship deal with disgraced footballer Joey Barton despite his club Newcastle United agreeing to give the midfielder another chance.
Barton, who recently completed a jail term for assault and has a history of misbehaviour, has been welcomed back into the Newcastle United squad by manager Kevin Keegan.
However Nike have not been so forgiving and have revealed that the company ended its two-year boot contract with the player, believed to have been worth £40,000 a year, when he was imprisoned for assault in May.
A Nike spokesman commented: ‘While Joey Barton is a talented footballer, we cannot condone or accept what he did and his contract has been terminated.
‘We have provisions in all our sponsorship contracts to take into account any actions by athletes that bring the brand into disrepute.’
Barton served 74 days of a six-month sentence after being jailed following an incident in Liverpool city centre in December 2007 where he punched one man 20 times and left a teenage boy with broken teeth.
He was also given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm on former Manchester City team-mate Ousmane Dabo during a training session last year.
