‘Club World Cup is the worst idea ever in football': Jurgen Klopp says players will suffer ‘unprecedented injuries' next season
Jurgen Klopp, the former Liverpool coach, has slammed the ongoing Club World Cup in the US as the 'worst idea ever implemented in football'.
'The argument about the money received for participation is crazy, because it does not apply to all clubs. Last year we had the Copa America and the Euro. This year we have the Club World Cup and next year the World Cup. This means that there is no real time for the players involved to recover – neither physically nor mentally,' Klopp said in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt. 'This is the worst idea ever implemented in football.'
Klopp compared footballers with basketball players in NBA to make his point.
'NBA players also earn a lot of money, but they have four months of vacation a year. Virgil van Dijk [Liverpool center] never had such a break in his entire career.
'Tournaments like the Club World Cup cannot be held at the expense of the players. I fear that next season there will be unprecedented injuries. If not during the season, then during or after the World Cup. We constantly expect the players to approach every game as if it were their last. We cannot continue like this. We have to give them rest, because without it they will not be able to perform at their best in the long term. And if they cannot do that, the whole product loses value,' said Klopp.
He had slammed the Club World Cup in January itself. 'I think it's useless,' he had said then. 'It doesn't help if you have no summer break. Who wins the tournament is the poorest winner of all time because he has to play the whole summer through and then the league starts again. We have now a lot of injuries in European football. We have to reduce the amount of games. That means in some leagues it would be better (if) you have 18 instead of 20. That means in other competitions, you don't add games,' the former Liverpool manager said.
'In Germany, you could watch handball. In Austria, you could watch skiing or whatever. You have other wonderful sports that you could watch in that time. You don't have to fill each gap with football,' Klopp added.
Supporting Klopp, then, was the player Kevin de Bruyne. 'The problem will come when we finish the Club World Cup. We know there will only be three weeks between the Club World Cup final and the first day of the Premier League. You have three weeks to take a vacation, and prepare to play another 80 games. We can try to say something, no solution has been found. They don't care. It's money that talks,' Kevin de Bruyne had also stated.
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