Barton claims the seeds of his departure from Newcastle United (in August) began in Walton Prison.
It was Barton’s home for 77 days of 2008 after he was sentenced to six months in prison for assault.
Barton claims it was only because the club bungled its attempts to sack him, and from that point on his relationship with “the Ayotallah” – owner Mike Ashley – was irretrievably damaged.
Joey Barton: “A lot of people say to me ‘Newcastle paid your wages when I was in jail’ but they never.
“I was not paid – not that I wanted to be.
“I was also given a contract from (then-executive director) Dennis Wise saying if I didn’t sign a renegotiated deal, they would sack me.
“(It was) a fifth of the money I was on. I was sitting in a jail cell at the time so I had no real power.
"As principled as I am I said to my agent at the time, ‘I’ll not sign it, f*** ‘em, I’ll let them sack me, I’m confident I’ll come out of here and get back to the player I was.’ In my opinion, I was getting railroaded into something I didn’t want to do.
“He (Barton’s agent) got a copy of the contract from Wise that he was meant to bring into Walton Prison for me to sign.
"He took it to his solicitor in London, who put it in a safe. Legally they were bound. They either had to sack me or keep me on the contract I was on. They couldn’t renegotiate.
“Once he phoned them up and told them about the FA’s rules and regulations and the fact he had this contract, they couldn’t then sack me.
“From that moment on a lot of the questions I had for (managing director) Derek Llambias were, ‘Well, hang on, you tried to do this for me when I was having a bad time.’ In my opinion they tried to f*** me when I was at a low time, yet they were demanding loyalty from me three years down the line when I was playing well.
“Derek said, ‘That’s not me, that was Dennis Wise’. At that club Mike Ashley was the Ayotallah – nothing happens without his say-so so in my opinion it came from Mike.
“I really want the club to do well as much as I really don’t like them – because I like the manager and I’ve got a lot of friends at the football club, not only players but members of staff, and I had a great rapport with the fans.
“The flipside is if Newcastle do well, the people I don’t like are doing well. But there’s more people I like at the club than dislike.
“I’ve got a lot of ill-feeling towards Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias, as have a lot of Newcastle fans but the football club is always going to be bigger than any individual.
“I keep getting told they’re savvy businessmen but dealing with them on a daily basis, which I have, I defy that.
“They promised reinvestment of the Andy Carroll money and I was asking where it was. They promised a number of things and delivered on few of them.
“I have to believe in the cause I’m playing for. I couldn’t turn up and just pick my money up. I do it because I want to prove people wrong.
“At Newcastle I couldn’t take to the pitch and lie to the fans and be a part of it. That’s what they were asking us to do. If you fundamentally despise everything the owners stand for it is very, very difficult.
“I am a man of principles, and maybe that’s the reason I’m not at Newcastle. Taking money off fans and taking the p*** out of them is not what I am about.
“I’d rather walk away with my dignity and respect intact and I feel I have done that. Ask any Newcastle fan.”