'It is a linguistic issue': Frankfurt Sporting Director reveals the alleged racist remark in Liverpool U19 game was a youth slang

In a recent pre-season friendly tournament in Germany, the Liverpool U19 squad faced the Eintracht Frankfurt U19s. The match seemed set to end in a 1-1 draw, but was halted in the final minutes when Liverpool players walked off the pitch, after hearing an alleged racist remark.

As a result, the game was abandoned, and the Eintracht Frankfurt NLZ Twitter account announced the match would be recorded as a 3-0 victory for Frankfurt. In response to the incident, Frankfurt Sporting Director Timmo Hardung issued a statement to BILD.

He said: "Our entire NLZ [youth performance centre] is like Eintracht Frankfurt, multicultural and we have clear values that we live by and constantly demand."

"Racism has no place here, but we still take such an accusation seriously. After consultation, our player confirmed that he had used the word ‘digga’, which is common in youth slang, during a normal game. We have no doubt that this statement is correct."

"We can rule out racism, it is a linguistic issue and we therefore hope that we have also cleared up the misunderstanding with the players concerned and those responsible at Liverpool FC."

In German "digga" is simply a word you use when addressing a friend, like "mate", "dude" or "bro". Its older variation, Dicker, technically means "fat guy" but the most common use of the term has nothing to do with weight.