Hillsborough victim asked to speak to Guardiola

Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son in the Hillsborough tragedyhas asked to speak to Pep Guardiola in person to try to quell Manchester City fans’ sickening chants leading up to the disaster that killed 97 people on April 15, 1989.

Aspinall, who spoke with Jürgen Klopp and spoke to first team players and youth squad players, asked to speak to Guardiola, manager of the ‘citizen’ team, the day after the match in Liverpool-Manchester City at Anfield in which some City fans chanted against Hillsborough and they even made graffiti in the bathrooms making fun of the accident.

“I want to speak to Pep,” Aspinall said in remarks collected by The Times. “I will tell Pep that there is no reason for those chants. Yes, fans can make their jokes and their jokes, but not if they involve tragedies or racism.”

“I know it’s not all fans, you can’t blame them all, but there are bad people, rascals, fools. They should realize that if they can safely go to a game it is because 97 innocent people died many years ago. They must kneel for the salvation they now have.”

“97 people are in the grave for the safety of those who went to the stadiums today. All the medical resources for those who died at Hillborough are there. They should be thanked, not laughed at,2 said Aspinall, whose son James died in the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday in 1989.

“It hurts me every time I hear those chants, every time I think of my son, innocent and only 18 years old, and in a grave. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was his first game away from home and they were singing it to him. We have to do something.”

In addition to the meeting with Guardiola, Aspinall asked for more actions by the English Football Federation (FA) and the Premier League, in the form of sanctions, both for fans and for clubs that allow this type of behavior.