Jürgen Klopp rejects racist claims about Germany’s football squad

Jürgen Klopp rejected racist social media claims about Germany’s football squad ahead of Thursday’s Nations League match against Serbia in Munich. Speaking at a press conference on 30 September, the Germany manager said he had no time for such comments and urged people to learn from the respect shown in a sports dressing room. The remarks were reported on 1 October as Germany prepared for its next match.

The claims questioned whether the national team was ‘German enough’ or ‘white enough’, according to the Guardian’s account of the exchange. Klopp refused to give the people making those claims more attention. The German Football Association’s account of the press conference also records his response to racist comments on social media: he said he had not seen them and had no time for stupidity, either in daily life or online.

What Klopp said about the racist comments

Klopp told reporters there was ‘absolutely no reason to pay attention to these people’, according to the Guardian. He described the commentary as ‘complete nonsense’ and said he had little time for ‘idiocy’ on social media. His response addressed the comments without accepting their premise that a player’s race or family background determines whether they belong in Germany’s team.

He pointed instead to the way teammates work together. The Guardian quoted him saying that the world could learn from a sports changing room, where people are respected on the basis of facts rather than discredited by false opinions. The DFB’s German-language press conference account records the same point. Klopp said the players at the national-team camp, including players with migrant backgrounds, ‘could not be better united’, the Guardian reported.

Germany’s squad and the Serbia match

Klopp’s remarks came during preparations for Thursday evening’s home match against Serbia. In its account of the press conference, the DFB quoted him calling the Greece defeat unnecessary while saying some aspects of Germany’s play had worked. He said the team needed patience as its players learned to work together. His comments placed the defeat within the early stages of building the side, while the social media abuse raised a separate question about how some people speak about its players.

The DFB said on 17 September that Klopp had selected 44 players across two groups for four Nations League fixtures. An initial group of 24 was named for matches against the Netherlands and Greece, with 20 further players joining for the October matches. The changing groups mean the players preparing for Serbia were part of a wider selection process, rather than a single fixed squad for all four games.

The DFB’s squad announcement named several players who had not previously appeared for the senior national side, including Hennes Behrens, Max Rosenfelder, Philipp Treu, Yannik Engelhardt and Bambasé Conté. It also listed Saïd El Mala, Tom Bischof, Karim Adeyemi and Derry Scherhant among players joining for the later fixtures. The announcement identifies selections and schedules; it does not establish any player’s ethnic identity.

One player ruled out of the Serbia match was defender Nico Schlotterbeck. Klopp told the DFB that Schlotterbeck had injured his ankle in a warm-up exercise without contact from an opponent. He said the player would travel to Munich for treatment before going home, and that medical staff would provide further information. The available account gives no timetable for his return.

Migration and Germany’s football history

The argument over who belongs in a German football team sits against a much longer history of migration in the sport. Historian Diethelm Blecking, writing for Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education, describes football as shaped by both national identity and international openness. His account traces the role of Polish and Masurian migrants in clubs in the Ruhr, including Schalke, and says clubs offered some migrant communities a way to take part in local social life.

Blecking also describes how views of migrant players and communities changed across different periods of German history. That history provides context for debates about national-team identity, but it does not establish the motives of the people who posted the recent comments. Klopp’s immediate answer was about his current players: he said their unity and mutual respect mattered more than the online claims directed at them.

What is known before Germany play Serbia

Germany were due to face Serbia in Munich on Thursday evening, according to both the DFB and the Guardian. Klopp said Serbia had an experienced side and that Germany had worked on lessons from the Greece defeat. The match had not taken place in the cited accounts, so they establish neither a result nor how Germany’s preparations would translate into its performance. They do establish the manager’s public response: he rejected the racist comments and defended the way his players work together.