Jurgen Klopp says Club World Cup is ‘worst idea ever’ | OneFootball

Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says the Club World Cup is “the worst idea ever” and that there should be serious fears over player welfare.

Klopp, who departed Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season, is now Red Bull’s head of global soccer and RB Salzburg, one of their teams, qualified for the competition. They failed to progress from the group stage, after the tournament was expanded to 32 teams and 48 games. Manchester City and Chelsea are the Premier League participants.

In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Klopp blasted the competition’s expanded format and the effect it will have on players.

“It’s all about the game and not the surrounding events – and that’s why the Club World Cup is the worst idea ever implemented in football in this regard,” he said.

“People who have never had or do not have anything to do with day-to-day business anymore are coming up with something.

“There is insane money for participating, but it’s also not for every club.

“Last year it was the Copa [America] and the European Championship, this year it’s the Club World Cup, and next year the World Cup. That means no real recovery for the players involved, neither physically nor mentally.”

In October, Fifpro filed a legal complaint with the European Commission regarding the Club World Cup, over what it said was FIFA’s “abuse of dominance”, and Fifpro representatives met with FIFA over the fixture calendar in January.

Klopp, who spoke at length in the past whilst in charge of Liverpool about players needing breaks and fears over serious injuries, is adamant football as a whole will lose out if players are not given the correct amount of rest.

“I have serious fears, that players will suffer injuries they’ve never had before next season. If not next season, then it will happen at the World Cup or afterwards.

“We constantly expect the players to go into every game as if it were their last. We tell them that 70 or 75 times a year. But it can’t go on like this.

“We have to make sure they have breaks, because if they don’t get them, they won’t be able to deliver top performances – and if they can’t achieve that anymore, the entire product loses value.”