I know – talking about it shows them that we're bothered by it. But this abuse that Liverpool fans receive every week has got to stop. Disgusting chants that perpetuate myths and lies and misunderstandings about real events where real human beings died.
The club have released a statement about it after the City game tonight. How have BBC reported it? Have a look for yourself:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/63278799Buried under a headline that reads "Liverpool 1-0 Manchester City: Pep Guardiola says crowd threw coins at him". It's a subset not deemed worthy of independent reporting. Compare this to the recent media action against the chants directed against Chelsea and Spurs, which received widespread attention and condemnation. The piece then goes on to almost suggest justification for the chants:
City are privately stressing they do not condone the abuse in any way.
However, they feel it cannot be viewed in isolation.
They have not forgotten how their team bus was attacked as it made its way to Anfield for the Champions League quarter-final in 2018.
Guardiola's claim he had coins thrown at him follows allegations of City coaching staff being spat at during corresponding fixtures in previous years.
And it is also clear that many Blues fans are defensive in the extreme about how their club is funded.
Whether it was fair or not, and many agreed with him, Klopp's comments about "three clubs" not having a financial ceiling in the build-up to the game annoyed senior figures at City and doubtless riled some visiting supporters, igniting passions even more at one of the most toxic fixtures in the Premier League calendar.
There is a feeling at City that what they view as Klopp's provocation was needless and made a difficult situation worse.
I'm not gonna talk about the dismissal of Klopp's comments about City's funding, because that discussion is happening elsewhere on here, but the implication of this is that the chanting is a response to behaviour from Liverpool fans/staff. This is disgraceful reporting. It completely ignores the fact that it happens most weeks, regardless of the opposition and it draws parallels between this and completely unrelated issues. And it brings up the fucking bus
again.
I think there needs to be some sort of united fan action to call this out. I know people have tried and I'm not going to be leading any charge myself, but it's time there was a concerted effort to keep it in the mainstream media on an ongoing basis. To their credit, I think that's a big part of the attention the Chelsea and Spurs chants received – strong, consistent reports over a long period of time. I get the sense that we talk about it a lot, amongst the Liverpool FC community, but I'm not sure we're pushing the agenda into the mainstream enough.
I'm pretty appalled at how the BBC have reported this and will be making a complaint to them. I wonder if that's one way we can start things moving in the right direction – calling out media sources that deliberately choose not to condemn these chants properly.
