"Let him call me when he wants to," Jürgen Klopp challenges

He was annoyed by a statement and made his point at a press conference

14/09/2022, 04:37 PM +00:00

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp scoffed at a suggestion by Chelsea's new American owner to introduce an All-Star Game in the English Premier League between top players from north and south. Speaking at the SALT conference in New York on Tuesday, Todd Boehly said he hoped the Premier League would take "a little lesson from American sports" and hold an All-Star Game that would raise money for clubs at the bottom of the English football pyramid.

The idea was mentioned to Klopp after Liverpool's 2-1 win over Ajax in the Champions League later in the day and the German manager scoffed. "What can I say - do you want them to bring in the Harlem Globetotters as well and let them play against a football team?" he said.

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Klopp said the main problem was that there is no room in an already crowded football calendar to hold such a match. "When he finds a date for that, he can call me," he said. "He forgets that in big sports in America those players have four-month breaks, so they're happy to be able to do a bit of sport in those breaks. It's completely different in football."

The MLB, NBA and NHL hold their All-Star Game in the middle of their seasons. The NFL equivalent - the Pro Bowl - is now held on the Sunday before the Super Bowl. Boehly, who is part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Major League Baseball and the Lakers in the NBA, has made his presence felt since heading the consortium of businessmen who acquired Chelsea for 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in May.

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With many of the big teams - Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and now Chelsea - under American ownership, it was perhaps inevitable that ideas influenced by professional sport in the United States would find their way into English football. Klopp has repeatedly criticised the pressures of the calendar on footballers because of the increasing number of matches for clubs and national teams in the year.