Call for Barton to resign after ‘holocaust’ remark
THE embattled Bristol Rovers manager Joey Barton has been urged to “consider his future” by a Bristol councillor amid widespread criticism.
Mr Barton is facing an intense backlash after using the term “holocaust” to describe his team’s inconsistency.
Bristol councillor Fabian Breckels, an associate member of the Jewish Labour Movement, labelled the remark “appalling”, urging Mr Barton to consider resigning.
In remarks during a post-match press conference following the club’s 3-1 defeat to Newport County on Saturday, Mr Barton was asked: “Is that defence capable of being more solid?”
Barton responded: “I said to the lads during the week, the team’s almost like musical chairs.
“Someone gets in and does well but then gets suspended or injured. Someone gets in for a game, does well but then has a holocaust, a nightmare, an absolute disaster.”
The club itself has come under heavy fire after removing and editing the footage after the com
ments were widely shared, before reposting it with the offending line removed.
Mr Breckels, Labour councillor for St George Troopers Hill, told BBC West that the club “ought to provide a considered response fairly soon”.
Dame Helen Hyde, a trustee of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, said that comparison demonstrates a “lack of knowledge”.
“The Holocaust was not a game,” she told BBC West.
“I don’t think Mr Barton knows what the word means and he is certainly not aware of the huge sadness and offence he has caused,” she added.
She encouraged him to “learn” about the “tragic events” of the holocaust.
Karen Pollock CBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, labelled the comments an “inappropriate comparison” in comments to BBC West.
Bristol Rovers Football Club has remained silent despite the widespread condemnation, refusing to provide any comment from the club or the manager.
The Holocaust saw six million Jews systematically murdered by Nazi Germany and its allies between 1941 and 1945.
In the 2011 Census, 777 people in Bristol identified Judaism as their religion, with three main synagogues in the city, but the wider Jewish community is much bigger when the student population is taken into account.
As first reported by the Telegraph, Barton won’t be subject to sanctions from the FA who have investigated the comments but deemed them to not constitute an aggravated breach of its rules.