Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp believes it isn’t fair for managers and players to take political stances ahead of the World Cup, insisting that the media “should have sent a message” when Qatar was awarded hosting rights in 2010.
The football world was stunned when Qatar was announced as the host nation for the 2022 World Cup, but a trail of corruption within FIFA’s ranks has been exposed in the following years.
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However, as the start of the World Cup nears, more and more questions are being asked about Qatar’s human rights record when it comes to migrant workers and the nation’s stance on the LGBTQI+ community.
However, Klopp is adamant such conversations and difficult questions should have been asked at the time Qatar won the hosting rights and not only months or weeks out from the tournament.
“Again, I watch it from a football point of view and I don’t like that players, from time to time, get in a situation where they have to send a message,” Klopp said.
“You are all journalists, you should have sent a message. You didn’t write the most critical article about it – and not because it is Qatar and things. No. About the circumstances, which was clear.
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“There we are guilty. Now we are telling the players you have to wear this armband and if you don’t do it you are not on their side and if you do it you are on their side.
“No, no it is footballers, it is a tournament, and we have to organise it. Players go there and play and do the best for their countries, it has nothing to do with the circumstances.
“I see already in the news, ‘How is it being here?’, and this kind of thing and it is all not OK for the players.
“It’s a tournament, it’s there, and we all let it happen and it’s fine because 12 years ago nobody did anything then. We cannot change it now, go there.”
With so many questions being asked of players recently, Klopp maintains it’s putting them under unnecessary “pressure” when they perhaps should be focusing solely on their on-field exploits.
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“Do you really think that we did enough in the first place?” Klopp said.
“Now making a story of it, now when it’s happened, now coming out of a corner and getting now players under pressure?
“That is what you will do with questioning these kinds of things, with asking these kinds of questions, with asking Harry Kane if he will wear [the rainbow armband], with Harry Kane saying he will wear it.
“The other guys say, ‘Please don’t make political statements.’ That’s not OK.
“The thing is organised by other people and I don’t say you let it happen, but we all let it happen.
“That time it was everything on the table, everything was on the table. Still, somehow, Mr Blatter came out of it and others as well. It’s that long ago that some of the worst guys have died already. It was that long ago when we could have sorted it.”
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The media wasn’t the only aspect of the World Cup that Klopp was fuming over.
The German boss also took aim at the topic of injuries going into the tournament, as nations competing in Qatar hold their collective breath in the hopes all of their players will come through the next week-and-a-half unscathed.
“I hate this subject,” Klopp said.
“These problems were so clear, they were so clear, and nobody mentioned it one time until three or four weeks before the World Cup. And now all of a sudden, players get injured and you say, ‘He cannot play the World Cup’. Wow!
“This situation, players getting injured late in the season and missing the World Cup, is not new. After a long season it happens everywhere in the world. But now starting the World Cup a week after the last game, that is a bigger risk. Crazy.”
