Rangers flop Joey Barton branded as 'laughable' and 'irrelevant' by Gers women's team boss

The Rangers women's manager has hit out at the ex-Gers player Joey Barton following his comments on women pundits in men's football. Earlier this month, Barton sparked huge controversy when he compared female pundit and ex-England striker Eni Aluko and co-commentator Lucy Ward to serial killers Fred and Rose West.

Following Barton's comments, Aluko has since announced she has left the country to avoid the abuse she has received with the ex-Bristol Rovers boss then quick to reply on X with further negative comments.

Barton, 41, started his career with Manchester City before playing for Newcastle, Queens Park Rangers and Burnley. He moved to Glasgow in 2016 but was suspended by the club just four months later following a training ground argument with Andy Halliday. Two months later, his contract was terminated.

At a pre-match press conference ahead of the Old Firm semi-final clash this weekend, the Gers women's manager Jo Potter was asked about the comments made by the former Ibrox player and she claimed the statements were "laughable" while noting the importance of ignoring the negativity that is thrown the way of women's football.

"It becomes that irrelevant", Potter said, "that it won't get that much traction for that much longer because he keeps changing angles that he's going at every single time and for me it just becomes a little bit laughable that we can't really take that seriously.

"I can't really listen to anything he says and take it seriously," Potter added. "At the end of the day it's just an opinion again and we apparently shouldn't have an opinion on men's football anyway. It's an opinion on that, which, again, for me is laughable.

"I think we need to concentrate on ignoring any negativity that comes along, aimed at females in football because we've made such great strides. I think if we give him any more traction or any more air time it's just feeding into exactly what he wants."