Klopp says Sterling was right not to react to racist abuse

Jürgen Klopp has said Raheem Sterling delivered the perfect response when subject to alleged racist abuse at Chelsea on Saturday.

The Manchester City and England forward laughed off abuse from home supporters during the Premier League champions' 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge. On Instagram the following day he accused sections of the media of helping to fuel racism with their portrayal of young black footballers.

The Metropolitan Police and Chelsea are continuing investigations and Klopp, speaking ahead of Liverpool’s Champions League tie against Napoli, has praised the club’s former player for his handling of the latest alleged racist incident to blight English football.

The Liverpool manager said: “I watched the game and I think I saw the situation where he went for the corner and the few guys where shouting. I didn’t hear, I don’t know if it was possible to, but I thought his reaction was just brilliant. You saw his face. He gave the right response not to react to these people.

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“I am obviously not surprised that these things still happen and they will not stop only because we talk about them, but I like the fact that we put the finger on it and say you cannot say what you want. We had similar situations in Germany and other countries, Italy with [Kevin Prince] Boateng when he stopped the game because of the things people shouted from the stands.

“There need to be punishments for things like this. As long as people are silly enough to do this, they need to be punished for it, that’s how it is. What I like is, I am sure 95 per cent of people are not like this so we should try to find the right amount of attention for them. Punish them but do not talk too much about them because they do not deserve that we talk about them.” – Guardian service