Ex-Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp on the backlash following his hiring at Red Bull: I knew it would come”

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·30. September 2025

Ex-Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp on the backlash following his hiring at Red Bull: I knew it would come”

In an interview with The Athletic, former Liverpool head coach Jürgen Klopp has spoken about the backlash he faced following his hire at Red Bull.

At the beginning of this year, Klopp was appointed Red Bull head of global soccer, meaning he would be in charge of RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, as well as the other clubs in the Red Bull multi-club model.

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For example, the former head coach was involved in the hiring of Ole Werner, who is the current head coach of Leipzig, joining from Werder Bremen in the summer.

However, Klopp’s appointment at Red Bull came with backlash. On the negative reaction to taking the job, the 57-year-old said:

“I knew it (would come). I’m German. I know what people in Germany think about the involvement of Red Bull in football. They love Red Bull. In all departments. But in football? No. So whatever, they want to do it that way. Funnily enough, it was only in Germany where the reaction was like that. But that’s fine — no problem. Everybody can think what they want. You just have to accept that I do what I want as long as I don’t hurt anybody. By the way, I don’t expect people to remember what I did for a specific club. The people in Mainz in the stadium now… they were little kids when I was there, so their parents had to tell them who I was. So that’s how it is, it is absolutely fine. I don’t expect everybody to like what I do. I have to do it for the right reasons — for my right reasons. By the way, in Liverpool, people are overly happy that I do what I do because I am not coaching another team. If I went to a foreign country, to Italy or Spain, people would have said, ‘Oh my God, that’s great.’ If I go to Bayern or whatever, then especially Dortmund fans would have said, ‘I don’t like it!’ I finished at Liverpool at 57. I was 100 per cent certain and sure that I will not finish working. I had a break for seven months or so. I enjoyed it — wow!”

The reason that people, especially in Germany, have disapproved of Klopp’s decision to join the Red Bull group is due to their stance on 50+1, the ownership rules in Germany. Technically, Leipzig does comply with the rules, but they only have a handful of members who vote on matters, making it very difficult for regular people to have a say due to those members being involved in the Red Bull structure in one way or another.

GGFN | Jack Meenan