NEW Burnley signing Joey Barton said he would have signed at Turf Moor for ‘50 pence a week’ after insisting that money was not a factor in his decision to join the Clarets.

Barton, who has been given the number 13 shirt at Burnley, said a desire to play for Turf boss Sean Dyche, and not money, was the over-riding factor for joining the Clarets.

The 32-year-old had been close to joining West Ham earlier this month and also had interest from a Swiss club, reported to be FC Sion, but opted to pen a one-year deal with Burnley.

Barton said of Burnley: “They have a financial structure that is comple-tely different to any other club I’ve been at and that wasn’t an issue.

“When I signed for QPR I did make a financial decision. A financial deci-sion to protect myself as a profess-ional and who has a finite time in that career.

“After that went wrong I swore I would never make a financial decision again in my life and that was the great thing about Burnley.

“The money banded about in Switz-erland was tax free, a longer contract and playing in the Europa League. It was financially the best deal out there.

“But I just thought I had made that decision once and I am not doing that again.

“I have had to go in to Burnley and tie in and buy in to their wage stru-cture. I just want to be a part of it.”

Barton, speaking to TalkSport, added: “The financials, we never had a conservation about it.

“If he had come out and said you are on 50 pence a week I didn’t care. I just wanted to be in a place where I felt the environment was right, I felt everyone was pulling in the right direction and I am really excited about what the future holds for me and for Burnley.

“I have made a great football decision and time will justify that.”

And Barton, who said he would not officially join up with his new team-mates until Monday, meaning he won’t feature in this afternoon’s Champion-ship clash at Bristol City, reiterated his desire to work with Dyche.

The former Newcastle star had planned to speak to Burnley only for West Ham to reinvigorate their inte-rest. In the end Barton opted against re-opening talks with the Hammers and travelled north to speak to Dyche.

He said: “I went to his (Dyche’s) house. We had spoken on the phone and had got on really well and had a lot of similarities in the way we were thinking. He said ‘we need to sit down and look each other in the face and be eye to eye on this.’ “West Ham decided two weeks ago they were going to go a different route and all of a sudden after they lost to Bournemouth they decided they wanted to revive it or certainly their owner did and that was back going but it was instantly uncomfortable for me.

“I picked back up with Sean, we met at his house and sat at his kitchen and spoke for many many hours about many different things. Some of them were football based and some of them weren’t.

“I was instantly drawn to him.

“There was a plane allegedly on its way from Switzerland to fly me out to speak to them and I just said ‘look I am not going to Switzerland, I am going to sign for Burnley.’”

Barton also insisted he would fit in with the character of the Turf Moor squad.

He added: “Sean has worked incred-ibly hard as have all the staff at Burn-ley and the players to create what they have got and there is no way they are going to let me rock that boat.”