Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp goes on rant about World Cup

The tournament has certainly been no stranger to controversy, with Jamie Carragher recently firing shots at it after an injury to Heung-min Son during Tottenham Hotspur‘s 2-1 win over Marseille. Carragher heavily criticised the unique timing of the “absolutely disgusting” Qatar World Cup, which he believes is having a hugely negative impact on player welfare. 

The Liverpool legend didn’t hold back one bit – and neither has the manager of the club he represented for his whole playing career, albeit in a slightly different way.

In a press conference ahead of the Reds’ trip to Spurs in the Premier League, Klopp went on a bit of a rant when the topic of the Qatar World Cup was raised – and he wasn’t exactly complimentary about the media’s role in it all.

Klopp also took a defensive stance towards the players, who he believes shouldn’t be required to make political statements at the tournament. Needless to say, the footage has attracted a heck of a lot of attention on social media.

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Fair play, Jurgen.

Here are some of the key points made by Klopp during his rather epic rant in front of the press. What did Klopp say in the press conference? The former Borussia Dortmund boss said, per Anfield Watch: “We all know how it happened. It was clear what happened – everyone who was involved at that time should have known. 

We couldn’t play the World Cup there in the summer because of the temperature, it’s still pretty hot, and there were no stadiums. “It’s not Aladdin with the lamp, somebody had to build them. I watch it from a football point of view, and I don’t like the fact that the players have to send the message.

“You are journalists – you should have been sending the message – you didn’t write about the circumstances in Qatar. These are footballers, the players go there and play and do the best for their countries. Being asked about everything else is not right for the players.

“There are wonderful people there, not everything is bad but how it happened in the first place was not right. Let the players and managers just play the games. Don’t put Gareth Southgate in a position where he has to talk about it all of the time.

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“Write something about it yourself, don’t ask us. We can’t change anything. It happened 12 years ago, the media didn’t do enough 12 years ago. Playing there in the summer, you can’t be doing physical work. “Football politicians – you feel personally blamed by me as I mention journalists should have done more. Do you really think we did enough in the first place? 

Now putting players under pressure by asking them questions about it and asking them about political statements. “That is not okay. We all let it happen, everything was on the table – the plot was missed again. It was that long ago, some of the worst football politicians have died – we could have sorted it so long ago.

“Qatar won the World Cup, that’s fine, I want a lot of things but I don’t get them. We can’t have everything. I will watch the game, but yes it is different to other World Cups.”  There’s no denying Klopp raised some very valid points, ones which aren’t going away anytime soon either.

And the Liverpool manager certainly won’t be the last to speak out in the build-up to the tournament…