28/6/2025–|Last update: 20:20 (Mecca time)
The German coach Juergen Klopp, former Liverpool coach and director of football operations at the Red Ball Group, said that the Club World Cup in its new look is “the worst idea implemented in football history.”
The German coach led the Liverpool team to crown the Premier League title in 2020 and the Champions League in 2019.
In an interview with the German newspaper “Welt”, Klopp said, when asked about training players in specific positions, “in the end, everything revolves around the matches and not the surrounding aspects, and for this reason the Club World Cup is the worst idea implemented in football in this regard.”
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The former Borussia Dortmund coach touched on the busy matches and shortening the time available to develop the players, saying, “People who have never had to do with daily work or no longer have anything to do with them who create such matters.”
Speaking, specifically about the burden of work that the players bear, Klopp said, “Last year we had Copa America and the European Cup, and this year the Club World Cup, and the next year the World Cup (for the teams).”
He added, “This does not give the players who participate in these tournaments any real period of recovery, neither physically nor mentally, the American Professional Basketball League player (NPA) who also receives a large salary that gets a 4 -month vacation every year, this leave is all that he obtained (Liverpool defender) Virgil Van Dyck throughout his career.”
The Austrian Salzburg involved under the Red Ball group participated in the new World Cup hosted by the United States, but he was bid farewell to the group stage after a victory over the Mexican Pachuca and tied with the Saudi Crescent and a loss against Real Madrid.
The Club World Cup competition started with the participation of 32 clubs on June 14 and concludes on July 13, while the new seasons of major leagues start very soon.
The first stage of the English Premier League begins on August 15th, Spain and French on the 17th of the same month, the German League in the 22nd, and the Italian League on the 23rd of the same month.
Prior to the start of the World Cup clubs, Vivarro – the global body represented by the unions of the players – called for a mandatory holiday of no less than 4 weeks at the end of the season, to protect the players from the pressure of excess matches and reduce the crowding of the football schedule.