Klopp Clashes With Reporter For Calling AFCON Little Tournament

Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp has clashed with a reporter for saying the African Cup of Nations, AFCON, is a little tournament.

Klopp had made the statement before his side defeated Porto in the Champions League on Wednesday.

The German was asked about the lack of international breaks until March.

And in response, he said, “No international break until March, I’ve heard that so often, but in January there’s a little tournament in Africa, I just want to say.”

He was later approached by a reporter who demanded he apologised to Africans for calling AFCON a little tournament.

The German said, “It’s all good, I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t know why you understand it like that to be honest.

“I didn’t mean it like that, come on… so I was not even close to it being the idea in my mind that I want to talk about the AFCON as a ‘little tournament’ or about the continent of Africa as a ‘little continent’, not at all.

“What I meant was, if you watch the full press conference, then you might have understood it the right way if you wanted to because I said there are no international breaks until March now.

“I said, ‘oh, there’s a little tournament in January’ and I didn’t mean a ‘little’ tournament, I was just saying it’s still a tournament, it’s ironic. It’s still a tournament, a big one. We [will] lose our best players to that tournament.

“I am not a native speaker but if you want to understand me wrong, you can do that all the time.

“I really don’t… I know that I would never think like this. I don’t understand why you thought this to be honest, but that’s really not OK as I would never do that.

“But that is it now. It was not my intention but you made something [more] of it, so that is not so cool to be 100 per cent honest.”