Tributes pour in after death of Diogo Jota and brother in Spain

Trib­utes con­tin­ue to pour in fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of Liv­er­pool for­ward Dio­go Jo­ta and his broth­er, An­dré Sil­va, who died in a car ac­ci­dent in Spain to­day.

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed King­dom, An­gela Rayn­er paid her re­spects at An­field, Liv­er­pool F.C.'s his­toric home since 1892, where she laid flow­ers in mem­o­ry of the Por­tuguese in­ter­na­tion­al. Al­though in the city for a lo­cal gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence, Rayn­er made time to vis­it the ground af­ter hear­ing what she de­scribed as “shock­ing” news.

“I’m ab­solute­ly dev­as­tat­ed for his wife, his chil­dren, and his fam­i­ly,” she said. “I can’t imag­ine what they’re go­ing through. My son is 28. It’s re­al­ly shock­ing. You speak to peo­ple here and he was like a fam­i­ly mem­ber to Liv­er­pool fans.”

Liv­er­pool City Re­gion May­or Steve Rother­am joined Rayn­er at An­field to leave a trib­ute of his own.

For­mer Liv­er­pool man­ag­er Jür­gen Klopp, who signed Jo­ta for the club, ex­pressed his grief in an emo­tion­al trib­ute. Un­der Klopp’s man­age­ment, Jo­ta helped Liv­er­pool win both the FA Cup and Carabao Cup.

“This is a mo­ment where I strug­gle!,” Klopp wrote. "There must be a big­ger pur­pose! But I can’t see it! I’m heart­bro­ken to hear about the pass­ing of Dio­go and his broth­er An­dré. Dio­go was not on­ly a fan­tas­tic play­er, but al­so a great friend, a lov­ing and car­ing hus­band and fa­ther! We will miss you so much! All my prayers, thoughts and pow­er to Rute, the kids, the fam­i­ly, the friends and every­one who loved them. Rest in peace - Love, J."

For­mer Liv­er­pool de­fend­er and Sky Sports pun­dit Jamie Car­ragher re­flect­ed on the emo­tion­al im­pact across the foot­balling world.

“In a state of shock, re­al­ly,” Car­ragher told Sky Sports News. “It’s one of the few times the whole foot­ball fam­i­ly comes to­geth­er. I can­not be­lieve it. It’s so sad and dev­as­tat­ing for his fam­i­ly, his wife, and his three won­der­ful chil­dren.”

Liv­er­pool for­ward Dar­win Nunez shared a trib­ute on In­sta­gram:

“There are no words of com­fort for so much pain. I will al­ways re­mem­ber you with your smile, like a true com­pan­ion on and off the field. From wher­ev­er he is now, I am sure he’s al­ways with you—es­pe­cial­ly his wife and three chil­dren. May Dio­go and An­dré rest in peace.”

The emo­tion is ex­pect­ed to car­ry in­to Liv­er­pool’s Pre­mier League open­er against Bournemouth on Fri­day 15 Au­gust, which Car­ragher pre­dict­ed would be “an out­pour­ing of emo­tion” for fans and play­ers alike at An­field.

Even be­yond foot­ball, trib­utes came in. NBA su­per­star and mi­nor­i­ty Liv­er­pool own­er Le­Bron James shared his con­do­lences on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter), writ­ing:

“My prayers go out to his loved ones dur­ing this time. May you all be guid­ed and pro­tect­ed.”

-Cour­tesy Sky Sports News.