Famous coach Jürgen Klopp abruptly cut off a conversation with a German network in New York Deutsche Welle. He was thrown off track by a journalist’s question about Bastian Schweinsteigerwho earned accusations of racism with his comments after the match between Germany and Ivory Coast. “This is African football, a bit unorthodox, quite wild and perhaps not very tactically disciplined. We have to be prepared for unpredictability,” Schweinsteiger described the game of the African national team, which immediately triggered an avalanche of accusations of patronizing and racist stereotypes in the public and the media.
Klopp’s response was violent. “You would like to discuss this now? No, there’s no way. There is no way I can answer that question. I know this is something the entire public is interested in, but you have purposefully cornered me with this question. It’s not my job. It’s too serious a topic to talk about every day, because I don’t even know what would be appropriate to say at all,” Klopp, 59, was angry.
Before finally taking off the microphone and leaving the scene of the interview in protest, the visibly unhinged expert aimed another poisonous arrow at the journalist: “It’s one thing how Africans experience this statement, but it’s quite another how others see it. At that very moment, I thought, thank God no one has asked me anything about this yet. Then you had your moment and – what a surprise – you are German. This really surprises me tremendously.”
