Jürgen Klopp on Raheem Sterling: ‘He gave the right response not to react to these people’
Jürgen Klopp has said Raheem Sterling delivered the perfect response when subject to alleged racist abuse at Chelsea.
The Manchester City and England forward laughed off abuse from home supporters during the champions’ 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. On Instagram the following day Sterling accused sections of the media of helping to fuel racism with their portrayal of young black footballers.
The Metropolitan police and Chelsea are continuing investigations and Klopp, speaking before Liverpool’s Champions League tie against Napoli at Anfield, has praised the club’s former player for his handling of the latest alleged racist incident to blight English football.
The Liverpool manager said: “I watched the game and I think I saw the situation where he went for the corner and the few guys were shouting. I didn’t hear, I don’t know if it was possible to, but I thought his reaction was just brilliant. You saw his face. He gave the right response not to react to these people.
“I am obviously not surprised that these things still happen and they will not stop only because we talk about them, but I like the fact we put the finger on it and say you cannot say what you want. We had similar situations in Germany and other countries, Italy with [Kevin Prince] Boateng when he stopped the game because of the things people shouted from the stands.
“There need to be punishments for things like this. As long as people are silly enough to do this, they need to be punished for it, that’s how it is. What I like is, I am sure 95% of people are not like this, so we should try to find the right amount of attention for them.
“Punish them but do not talk too much about them because they do not deserve that we talk about them.”