Dortmund's Klopp criticised by Germany's chief ref

Jurgen Klopp, coach of German champions Borussia Dortmund, has been criticised by Germany's referees chief for his occasional aggressive pitch side behaviour towards Bundesliga officials.

"Even if Klopp afterwards says 'I'm sorry', at the end of the day, an impression is always left behind," Lutz Michael Frohlich, the head of referees at the German Football Federation (DFB), told German radio.

"The behaviour he displays on the sidelines shows so much aggression that it can spawn actual violence."

Klopp has repeatedly clashed verbally with the fourth official during Bundesliga matches.

In 2010, television cameras showed him shouting into the face of official Stefan Trautman during a game against Hamburg and at the end of September, he again clashed with an official during Dortmund's draw with Eintracht Frankfurt.

He was fined on both occasion by the DFB.

"That actually hit me quite hard," said Klopp when asked about Frohlich's criticism in the wake of his team's 2-1 win at Mainz on Saturday which put them second in the Bundesliga.

"I have played my part and had my incidents in the past.

"Did (the criticism) have to be made public? Anyway, it's never nice to be mentioned in the same context as something like that. Now I will wait and see what happens next."

Germany head coach Joachim Loew said his Bundesliga colleagues have a tough job trying to keep their pitchside emotions in check.

"The trainer plays out his emotions on the pitch, they are in the middle of the action and they are highly concentrated on what is going on," Loew told German television.

"Of course, they have to express their emotions sometimes."

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