Piers Morgan has slammed Liverpool fans labelling them as 'pathetic' as the national anthem was booed and jeered on the day of King Charles' coronation.
Ahead of this weekend's round of fixtures, the Premier League 'strongly advised' clubs to play the national anthem. On Friday, it was confirmed that the Reds would play 'God Save the King' before their encounter with Brentford.
The decision was widely condemned by fans in the build-up to Saturday's evening kick-off against the Bees. The home fans in Anfield drowned out the national anthem with chants of ‘Liverpool, Liverpool!’ before the sound of that familiar drum-roll sparked boos and whistles.
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Sky Sports' Twitter account posted a video to their channels of the moment the national anthem was played at Anfield. The TV presenter quote tweeted the post saying: "Pathetic."
He followed up by adding: "Championing free speech doesn’t mean agreeing with everything you hear. Liverpool fans are perfectly entitled to boo the anthem on the day of the coronation - just as I’m perfectly entitled to call them pathetic for doing so."
Jurgen Klopp was diplomatic in his reaction to the national anthem being booed. The German said it was a 'big day' for England and insisted that it was okay for people not to be happy about the events in the capital.
"First and foremost, today is a big day for England and I respect that a lot," he said. "Everyone who wants to be happy about it and wants to celebrate it is allowed to celebrate it.
"We have, thank God - and not everything now is better than it was in the past - but we have freedom of speech. That means a free opinion as well. It was clear that something like this would happen, I think everyone knew it. And that is allowed, meanwhile. That is fine.
"Nothing else happened and there was not any kind of chants or anything like that. It was just that the people showed [their feelings]. I don't know exactly what it is, some things I know about, not all. But the people of Liverpool in the past were not always happy with how the city or the club was dealt with. So that is what they did."
The 55-year-old added: "I think really today, for all other people who love the day - and I am not sure if you say congratulations to the king but if you did then I do that here - but people who celebrate it, they do that here. Other people who are not happy about it, they say it and then that's it. I think that is absolutely OK."
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