Jürgen Klopp has reacted with disgust to a social media debate questioning whether the Germany team he is in the process of forming are “white enough”. Klopp said he believed there was no point in giving room to “such people and their utterances”, dismissing them as “complete nonsense”. Asked in a press conference to respond to the debate as to whether the national team were “not German enough” or “not white enough”, he said: “There is absolutely no reason to pay attention to these people.
You won’t get my thoughts on this. I have little time in everyday life for idiocy – and even less on social media. Full stop.” Klopp, whose plans for the Germany team since he took over as the manager in the summer have attracted huge attention, said the players he had gathered at the national team camp, including several players with a migrant background, “could not be better united than they are”.
The barrage of racist and generally offensive commentaries on social media followed Germany’s 1-0 defeat by Greece last Sunday, in the Nations League, marking the first time Greece had defeated Germany. It is also reflective of plenty of utterances from MPs of the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, who have repeatedly and consistently criticised the diversity and ethnic makeup of the national team, often referring to the squad in derogatory terms such as a “politically correct mercenary force”. Klopp, who has a four-year contract running until the end of the 2030 World Cup, was speaking before Germany’s Nations League match on Thursday evening against Serbia.
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