Jurgen Klopp fumes at winter World Cup: 'At the wrong moment for the wrong reasons'

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says the thought of a mid-season World Cup fills him with rage as elite footballers ready themselves for the most gruelling campaign ever.

Following PFA chief Maheta Molango’s warning to Telegraph Sport that top players’ careers will be curtailed by the excessive workload of the international calendar, Klopp doubled down on his long-held view that this year’s World Cup in Qatar is “at the wrong time for the wrong reasons”.

“If all the players have a break it is not a problem. It is good,” said Klopp about the interrupted campaign ahead. “It is like a winter break which I had in Germany. The problem is the players who play the World Cup. That is just not okay. If you go to the final at a World Cup and win it or lose or a third-place match you are already quite busy, and then the (league) starts a week later. 

“When I start talking about it, I get really angry. My problem is that as much as everybody knows it’s not right, nobody talks often enough about it that it will be changed. Something has to change. You cannot just constantly watch top-class players and say, ‘oh my god, they are great’.

“It is like climate change. We all know something has to change but nobody is saying what we have to do. Why wouldn’t we talk about it and do it properly and say, ‘ladies and gentlemen, Fifa, Premier League, FA, start talking to each other’.

“There must be one meeting where they all talk to each other and the only subject should be the most important part of this game, the players. It didn’t happen yet because the managers are in the jump seat, in out, in, out, so (people think) why should we be concerned about the long-term effects? This World Cup happens at the wrong moment for the wrong reasons.”

Like