Jurgen Klopp Clash With Premier League Referees Body : Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp reignited feud against referee Paul Tierney following Liverpool’s 4-3 Premier League win over Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday as he continues to clash with the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) , the body responsible for appointing referees for Premier League matches.
Klopp tackled referee Paul Tierney after the match.
“How can they give a foul by Mohamed Salah [before Spurs’ third goal]?” Klopp told Sky Sports when asked to explain his anger at the fourth official.
“We have our history with [Paul] Tierney, I really don’t know what this man has against us, he has said there is no problems but that cannot be true.
“How he looks at me, I don’t understand it. But again? He was reffing against Tottenham [in 2021] where Harry Kane should have got a red card. And I love this player, crazy player and I don’t want him to get a red card, but he should.
Klopp also claimed what Tierney had said to him when showing him a yellow card – which he did not give any specific information on – was “not okay”.
Klopp said: “My celebration towards the fourth official, I didn’t say any bad words or nothing unnecessary, which is fair. I got my punishment by pulling my hamstring. But what he said to me when he gave me the yellow card is not okay.”
However, the PGMOL says it has assessed the case using Tierney’s recorded audio from the match and sees no reason to discipline the referee for what he said.
A statement read :
“PGMOL is aware of the comments made by Jurgen Klopp after his side’s fixture with Tottenham Hotspur.
“Match officials in the Premier League are recorded in all games via a communications system and having fully reviewed the audio of referee Paul Tierney from today’s fixture, we can confirm he acted in a professional manner throughout including when issuing the caution to the Liverpool manager so, therefore, we strongly refute any suggestion that Tierney’s actions were improper.”
Klopp, who has yet to hear from the FA but is braced for a call asking him to explain his comments, continued:
‘He (Tierney) showed me a yellow and smiled to my face. That’s it. The final whistle we go inside and I try to calm down and it didn’t work out properly and I said what I said.
‘The things which were made of what Paul Tierney said to me (that he said Tierney’s words were unacceptable) I didn’t say. I said “What he said to me was not OK” and I thought it was not OK because it was not a red card in my view. I understand I opened the box.
‘It was not intentional but I opened it. Your colleague (from Sky Sports) stepped into it and wanted me to carry on and said words like ‘inappropriate’ or whatever and I didn’t respond to that.
‘Maybe in that moment I should have said: “He said to me he thought it was a red card and I didn’t think it was a red card” and stopped talking there. That is one of the things that happened. The rest was, the things I said were how I felt in that moment about Paul Tierney refereeing our games.
‘I am very sure he is not doing it intentionally but we have a history and I cannot deny that. I am not a resentful person – not at all, I think it is a waste of time, I have to get over so many things in my life – but these kind of things which happened in the past, in decisive games for us or not, happened.’
‘I know the refs were really angry about what I said and go now for it. I heard I was lying. I did a lot of things that day but I didn’t lie. I shouldn’t have said a couple of things but lying was not one of them.’
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