Klopp doesn't think Lineker should step away from Match of the Day

Jurgen Klopp has stated that he sees "no reason" for Gary Lineker to have been asked to step aside from hosting Match of the Day by the BBC, following the presenter's involvement in a political row on social media. The BBC announced last Friday that Lineker would not be part of this week's episode of the widely-watched British football program, after the former footballer criticized the UK government's new asylum policy on Twitter.

After the BBC's announcement, several prominent pundits, including Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, expressed solidarity with Lineker and refused to appear on the show. This forced the BBC to broadcast Saturday's episode without a studio team.

"How I understand it, I am not a native... but I cannot see any reason why you would ask someone to step back for saying that. I can't,"

Klopp said.

"I'm not sure if it's a language issue or not, but I can't find it. But that's the world we are living in. Everybody is so concerned about doing things in the right manner, saying the right stuff to everybody.

"If you don't do that, you create a s***storm, which we didn't have when we were young. It's a really difficult world to live in.

"If I understand it right, then this is a message or opinion about human rights, and that should be possible to say. 

"I don't understand the social media part of it, but I'm probably too old for that. But apart from that, no. If I got it right, there's no reason, for me." 

In response to the government's asylum policy, Lineker had posted:

"There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I'm out of order?"

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