Klopp has called for Liverpool’s Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur to be replayed – as the Reds continue to explore their options in the wake of the VAR controversy
Luis Diaz had a goal wrongly chalked off for offside
Liverpool’s next options are being explored by Jonathan Bamber, the club’s General Counsel and Director of Football Administration and Governance
Klopp believes it is only fair the match is replayed due to the unprecedented nature of the blunder.
Klopp:
“The audio didn’t change it at all,”
“Because I was not really interested in why things happened because I knew.
"I saw the outcome, I saw goal we scored and it didn’t count so I wasn’t now waiting for the audio and sitting there hoping I’d find out how it could happen or whatever
“Yes, it was an obvious mistake and I think there would have been solutions for it afterwards.
"If not, I can say immediately, and probably some people don’t want me to say it, not as the manager of Liverpool but much more as a football person, I think the only outcome should be a replay. That’s how it is. It probably will not happen.
“The argument against that will probably be if you open that gate then everybody will ask for it.
"I think the situation is that unprecedented that – it didn’t happen before, I’m 56 years old and I’m 50 years in football and I’m absolutely used to, even if I don’t always deal well with it, wrong decisions, difficult decisions – but something like that as far as I can remember has never happened.
"That’s why I think the replay would be the right thing.
“The next argument would be if it would happen again, I think a replay would be the right thing to do or the referee has the opportunity to bring both coaches together and say ‘sorry, we made a mistake, but we can sort it, that Liverpool score a goal and we start from there’.
“In this specific game, what makes it a bit more special obviously is that we conceded two minutes after we scored a regular goal.
"How all things depend on each other, if the other goal would have counted, we would have started in the centre of the pitch and not where it started, it would have been different. That’s one thing. That’s my view on it.”
Asked if he had spoken to the club's hierarchy about what options are available, Klopp said:
“Yeah, of course we speak. But that is other people in the club who put that together and then the club go for it.
"We are doing the things we think we have to do. The word escalation did not come from me. I don’t exactly know what it means.”
Klopp added
"We are still going through the information that we have."
“If you have a situation first time you try to understand it, why it happened, and work on solutions.
"I know everyone is doing that but that doesn’t solve the actual problem because there are points at stake.
“So how could we sort for the future and this situation? That is how I understand it. You try. You have to try.
"That is why for me a replay would be the right solution. That is fine. Whether that happens or not is not close to my hands. That is my opinion.
“Howard Webb (head of the PGMOL) said the process will be better. That is good. That would be a really good outcome but it doesn’t change that something really happened.
"What is the solution for that, by the way? Just us saying, ‘okay, yeah, got it, there was a penalty situation not given against us or four in the past and we didn’t get a replay’ - that is different.
"It is a different situation. A goal was scored. Legal. Fact. In the end it didn’t count. That’s it.”
Comments