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Jurgen Klopp turns to legal action after xenophobia accusations.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will take legal action after accusations of xenophobia against Manchester City’s owner thanks to comments he made before Liverpool’s clash with City at the weekend.
In a tense match on Sunday, Liverpool defeated the Premier League champions 1-0 at Anfield. Klopp was sent off for yelling at an aid referee and has since been charged by the FA for improper conduct.
Before the game Klopp had made comments about the Reds having an impossible task in keeping up with the spending power of City and other football super-powers, saying: ‘There are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially,’ referencing the three clubs who have backing from Gulf states – PSG and Newcastle.
The Times reported that City felt Klopp had inflamed tensions ahead of the match, during which Pep Guardiola was pelted with coins from fans.
The City camp made xenophobic accusations as well, although Klopp is perplexed by that claim, and the Telegraph is reporting that Liverpool may file a lawsuit.
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At the suggestion that his comments could have been seen as xenophobic, Klopp said: ‘I don’t feel, in this specific case, I don’t feel it at all. I know myself. And you cannot hit with something which is miles away from my personality. If I was – I cannot remember the word, wow! – like this I would hate it. I would hate myself for being like this.
‘I have said a lot of times things that were a little bit open for misunderstanding. I know that. It was not intentional, just sometimes you say things and you think, “Oh my God! It can be interpreted like this?” But this is not one of these moments. Absolutely.’
Generally speaking, Klopp has been very appreciative of City, Guardiola, and attacker Erling Haaland, and he thinks that any offence was likely the result of a miscommunication.
‘That’s the life of people who speak in public,’ he said. ‘So it’s not the first time that I’ve been misunderstood. I know what I thought when I said it. If somebody misunderstands that – or wants to misunderstand that – I cannot change that. I have to be careful, I’ve known that since years ago. I’m not always careful, I realise that as well, from time to time – I just answer and say what I think.
‘I will try to do that [say what I think] in the future as well because usually it’s never my aim to blame anybody or whatever, just talk about things – that I think are not that important in life, actually. But I think I say what I know about it, or how I judge it, or how I see it. So that’s it, I cannot change that. Nothing the things were made of [by Manchester City] were my intention, to be honest.’