Joey Barton responds to the appointment of Rebecca Welch as first female Premier League referee... amid his sexist tirade against women working as pundits in men's football

Joey Barton has praised the PGMOL promotion of referee Rebecca Welch to a Premier League fixture over the Christmas period just a week after launching an incendiary misogynist tirade over whether women should be broadcasting in the men's game. 

Welch will become the first female referee in the league's history to officiate a Premier League fixture on December 23, when she takes charge of Fulham's match against Burnley at Craven Cottage. 

The 40-year-old previously broke new ground when she became the first woman to act as a fourth official during a Premier League tie in November between Fulham and Manchester United. 

After starting her refereeing career in 2010 whilst working in an administrative role in the NHS, Welch started full-time in 2019, and was promoted to the Championship in ahead of the 2022-23 season. 

Taking to social media, Barton heralded the decision to further raise Welch's profile, as well as the organisation's decision to promote Sam Allison - who will become the first black referee to oversee a Premier League game since Uriah Rennie in 2008. 

'Brilliant (thumbs up emoji),' Barton wrote in response to a post announcing the news. 

'Rebecca and Sam worked hard in the lower leagues. Think we had Rebecca's 1st game away at Hartlepool. Sam, was a regular at Bristol. Top fella.

'Let's hope they do well in the big league (thumbs up emoji)'. 

The post on X (formerly Twitter) came as a surprise to some as the former Fleetwood Town manager continues to be in the thick of sexist campaign against women broadcasters working in the men's game which has gone as far to suggest that there a certain jobs across the sport that women are unfit to fill. 

Barton launched his tirade last week with the claim that 'women shouldn't be talking with any authority in the men's game' and his belief that he 'cannot take a thing they say serious [sic] in the men's arena'. 

He went on to pillory BBC broadcaster and former footballer Alex Scott, decry his former club Manchester City's use of a women presenter for their social media coverage, and double down on his comments in an appearance on TalkTV's Piers Morgan: Uncensored. 

The ex-player was largely criticised for his contradictory viewpoints in the television slot, which saw him at once claim that his reasoning was 'absolutely not' about women not having played in men's football - before describing the various ways it was important to have experienced the men's game at the highest level. 

It was later revealed that his sole example of commentary he did not deem up to 'journalistic standards' by a female broadcaster was incorrect due to his misquoting of Courtney Sweetman-Kirk's commentary of Wataru Endo's goal for Liverpool against Fulham.  

Barton later claimed that it was 'dangerous' to have women in certain departments of men's teams and a 'recipe for disaster'. 

Whilst Scott did not reference Barton directly, her sign-off after hosting Arsenal's WSL clash with Chelsea over the weekend insisted that 'football is a better place with us all in it' in a message to the 'young girls told "no you can't"' watching the broadcast. 

Journalist Carrie Brown said that working in football had 'sucked the life out of her' after Barton targeted her and her appearance in a social media post. 

Chelsea manager Emma Hayes - who Barton had previously praised for her incisive analysis on punditry duties and success with the women's side - offered up a four-minute monologue on the 'systemic misogyny' in football brought to the fore by Barton's stream of commentary. 

‘The realities are that male privilege has been something that's always been at the centre of football in this country,’ Hayes said at a press conference. 

‘Women were banned playing football up until the 1970s. I don't expect any individual personality to understand their privilege, nonetheless you only have to see scores of women across the internet or in the business, whether you're a presenter, a coach or a player to realise that we're routinely used to dealing with systemic misogyny, bullying, and behaviour that has been pretty normal for a large part of the football public.

‘If you haven’t experienced systemic misogyny like lots of us have, you can’t for one moment understand how detrimental some of these conversations are, knowing that anything anyone says just enables an absolute pile on, particularly on social media which, let me be clear, doesn’t take a lot for people to pile on women,' Hayes added.

'It’s pretty normal for a lot of people that support football.

‘So it’s sad, a little bit, not that we are having this conversation, we should have the conversation about the broader issue of it.'