A Nigerian journalist, Babatunde Ojora has asked Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp to apologise for regarding the African Cup of Nations as a little tournament.
The Liverpool manager, following his side’s 2-0 win against Porto, was called up on what he said on Saturday when he described the Africa Cup of Nations a ‘little tournament’ while talking about international breaks.
But Ojoro who works with OJB Sports demanded an apology and believed Klopp would never say a ‘little tournament in Europe’
“Hi Jurgen, during your last pre-match presser, you deliberately called the Africa Cup of Nations a “little tournament”.
“I think it’s an insult to the players, an insult to the fans, an insult to the people on the continent and I think you owe the continent an apology,” he told the coach.
A taken aback Klopp replied, “I didn’t mean it like that, come on,” Klopp said. “So I was not even close to it being the idea in my mind that I want to talk about the African Cup of Nations as a ‘little tournament’ or the continent of Africa as a little continent, not at all.
“What I meant was, if you watch the whole 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 lose our best players to that tournament…”
The journalist retorted and said, “But you wouldn’t say that in Europe, you wouldn’t say a ‘little tournament in Europe…'”
“I am not a native speaker but if you want to understand me wrong, you can do that all the time,” Klopp replied.
“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.”
