Jürgen Klopp Faces an FA Charge After Post-Match Comments at West Ham

The Liverpool manager has until Monday to respond to a charge of “questioning the integrity of a referee.”

After Liverpool’s 1-1 draw at West Ham United, Jürgen Klopp made his way over to the cabal of officials on the pitch for a little post-match conversation. It had been a frustrating game against the Hammers. An early goal from Sadio Mané was canceled out quickly by West Ham’s Michail Antonio and the stalemate persisted for the duration.

Klopp was aggrieved throughout the match, feeling that his side were constantly losing out on close calls from the referee. After the final whistle, he made his feelings known and was subsequently flagged for “questioning the integrity of a referee.”

Today the English FA formally charged Klopp and the manager has until Monday to respond.

“Jurgen Klopp has today been charged with a breach of FA Rule E3.

“It is alleged that comments he made in a post-match interview following Liverpool’s league game against West Ham United on 4 February 2019 breached Rule E3(1) as they questioned the integrity of the match referee and/or implied bias.”

During the match, Klopp apparently wasn’t aware that Sadio Mané’s goal shouldn’t have stood given that James Milner had previously received that ball in an offside position before sending in the assist.

Since he’s learned about the situation with the inattentive linesman, Klopp at least has a reason to attach to the referee’s biased behavior against Liverpool. But at the time, he was in the dark and brooding over what he considered to be obvious slights to his team and not a ref perhaps trying to even things out after his linesman so horrifically goofed.

“I heard our goal was offside, I’m pretty sure the ref knew that,” the Reds manager had said after the match to BBC Sport.

“In 50-50 situations (after that) it was always a free-kick for the other team, which was hard and did not make life easy.

“As a human being, if I know I have made a big mistake in the first half, I don’t want to open the gap any more.

“Referees are obviously human beings, and I understand that, but I didn’t during the game because I had no clue that our goal was offside.”

Klopp likely faces a fine but some have speculated that the manager could also see a touchline ban and have to go to bed early for a week. No, two weeks.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com