GIROUD PLEA: DON’T SHAME BLUES AGAIN
Liverpool v Chelsea Premier League, tomorrow, KO 4.30pm BY TONY BANKS & DAVID MADDOCK
OLIVIER GIROUD has pleaded with Chelsea’s disgraced fans to behave themselves at Anfield tomorrow when Liverpool pay tribute to the 96 fans who lost their lives in the Hillsborough tragedy.
Liverpool are marking Monday’s 30th anniversary of the disaster with a minute’s silence before kick-off. And Chelsea have warned their controversial fans, who brought shame on their club on
Thursday when a group was filmed singing racist songs about Liverpool’s Muslim striker Mo Salah, to behave themselves at Anfield.
Chelsea striker Giroud said: “This is a chance for our club to be dignified.
“It was a very small minority involved (on Thursday) but it’s not acceptable. These guys don’t belong to Chelsea.” Both Chelsea and Liverpool swiftly condemned the incident on Thursday, and three of the six fans involved were banned for life.
Officials were last night still studying videos to identify the others. Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp (left) said: “It’s disgusting, another example of something which absolutely should not happen. If you do something like that, you should not be able to enter a stadium again. They should not be allowed to be part of the football community again. Football is the best example of how different people, different races, can work together brilliantly. Go in every dressing room and you find them all there sitting there together, next to each other, and nobody cares about where the person next to him comes from, who his parents are. It’s never an issue.
“We should not see it as a Chelsea thing or a Liverpool thing. It’s another sign that something is going wrong out there.”
Klopp insisted that Salah (below) will rise above the abuse and that the player does not want to give any further publicity to the vile views of the racists. “We don’t give these people more than they deserve,” he said. “A strong reaction is needed.”