An angry OJB demanded an apology from Klopp for insulting the continent Nigeria Journalist Ojora Babatunde aka OJB demanded an apology from Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp following his comments on AFCON at the weekend.
“In January, there is a little tournament in Africa, I just want to say,” the German replied to a journalist who asked him how relieved he was that there will be no more international break till March at Anfield on Saturday.
Reacting to the comments, and offended OJB, who was at the Liverpool Champions League post-match conference on Wednesday night, reminded Klopp of these comments and asked him to apologize to Africans for what he termed comments he termed “demeaning” and an “insult”.
“During your last pre-match presser, you demeaningly [sic] regarded the African version of the Euros -AFCON – as a ‘little tournament’. I think it is an insult to the players, fans, the people, and the continent. I think you owe the continent an apology,” OJB said.
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Responding to the comments after Liverpool sealed their fifth consecutive win in the Champions League, Klopp defended himself and clarified that he meant it in an ironic way.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Klopp said. “I don’t know why you understand it like that, to be honest. It was not even close to the idea in my mind that I want to talk about AFCON as a ‘little tournament’ or the continent of Africa as a little continent. Not at all.”
“What I meant is, because people said and if you watch the full press conference if you wanted to understand it in the right way you could have understood it in the right way. I said ‘there’s no international break anymore until March’ and I said: ‘Oh and there’s a little tournament in January,’ and I didn’t mean a little tournament, just like you say it when there’s still a tournament. It’s ironic. There’s still a tournament. A big one. We lose our best players to the Africa Cup of Nations.”
“I’m not a native speaker, but if you want to understand me wrong you can do that all the time. I know that I would never think like this. I never understand why you thought like this to be honest, but that’s really not OK, because I would never do that, but that’s it now.
“It was not my intention, but you made something of it. That’s not so cool as well to be 100 percent honest.”
The Reds will be without the trio of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, and Naby Keita, who will be with their respective countries when the AFCON kicks off in Cameroon this January.
Salah and Mane played a key role once again as the Reds defeated Porto 2-0 at Anfield on matchday 5 in the Champions League.
Egypt’s Salah was on target as he scored the second goal of the day, his sixth goal in five Champions League matches this season.
