Debate: should Barton be given another chance?

Given that he has not touched alcohol for the past seven months, Joey Barton cannot quite be described as drinking in the last-chance saloon, but the midfield player has been given a final opportunity to rebuild his career at Newcastle United. With tempers and patience stretched to their limits, the club and their troubled employee agreed a fragile truce yesterday.

Having been released from Manchester Prison on Monday after serving 74 days of a six-month sentence for assault and affray, Barton is free to resume training with Kevin Keegan's squad. That decision was taken after talks between the manager, the player, Willie McKay, his agent, and Newcastle officials.

Keegan's strong desire to rehabilitate the 25-year-old was decisive, but Barton is aware that Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, explored every avenue of disciplinary action, including dismissal. Ashley is furious that the club have been brought into disrepute by a man he pays £3.4million a year and his gut feeling was to impose the harshest punishment.

Yet the club's approach to the issue left them little room for manoeuvre. Newcastle's threat to sack the player for a breach of contract was undermined when they offered him a deal on reduced terms. The club requested that Barton take a pay cut from £65,000 to £30,000 a week, which the player resisted. At the same time, terminating his contract would not allow them to withhold his registration.

Newcastle then said that they would be ready to sell Barton for £3million, with the proviso that he agreed a weekly deal worth £30,000. When that was rejected, Ashley effectively had the choice of allowing him to join a rival club for nothing or granting a reprieve. At one stage it is understood that the Professional Footballers' Association was involved in the dispute.

Keegan's public commitment to work with Barton was significant, as is Newcastle's failure to make notable inroads in the transfer market this summer. However, Barton, who was recently handed a four-month suspended sentence, ordered to pay £3,000 in compensation and given 200 hours of community service for an assault on Ousmane Dabo, a former team-mate at Manchester City, cannot err again.

McKay would not comment last night, and the club issued a terse statement: “Newcastle United officials can confirm they have met with Joey Barton [yesterday], following which it has been agreed by everyone involved that Joey will remain at the club. The club will not be making any further comment on the matter.”

Barton is unlikely to be paid any bonuses this season and Nike has announced that it has cancelled a £40,000-a-year boot deal with him. He is unlikely to elicit much sympathy, but Barton's associates have pointed out that he has been teetotal since the turn of 2008. When he spent nearly a month in the care of the Sporting Chance this year, he paid for his treatment as well as the daily helicopter journeys from the Hampshire clinic to training on Tyneside.

Fined by the club over the incident in Liverpool city centre on December 27, he was not paid during his spell behind bars. The Times can reveal that in the intervening months Barton has made a £25,000 donation to the Tamsin Gulvin Fund - a charity established to support people who have addiction problems and no financial backing - of which he is patron.

Newcastle appear drawn to legal complexities. The agent of Fabricio Coloccini is threatening to report Deportivo La Coruña to Fifa over the Spanish club's handling of Newcastle's bid for the Argentina defender. “At the end of the day, Fabricio is in danger of missing out on the contract of his life and we might need to go to Fifa to get the matter resolved,” Marcelo Lombilla said.

Newcastle have, however, completed the signing of Sébastien Bassong, the defender who has been on trial, from Metz for an undisclosed fee.