Ragnar Klavan's Second Act: The Fight To Fix Estonian Soccer

Forbes

18 hours ago

Former Liverpool player Ragnar Klavan engages with young football players. He is bidding to become ... More the next president of the Estonian FA.
Last week, Ragnar Klavan took time out of his busy schedule to catch up with Jurgen Klopp, his former manager at Liverpool and today a director of the Red Bull Group. Klavan, who stands as Estonia's most famous football player, recalls a moment under Klopp that changed his life. He remembers Klopp's speech at the club's Christmas party: 'When it's the time to train, we give our best. When it's the time to play, we give our best. But when it's the time to party, we give our best. But for everything there's time and there's a place. And this, like, really stuck with me. This is how Jurgen operates, this is his mentality.'
Multilingual, Klavan played in five different European leagues, including the Netherlands and Germany, but he rose to fame at Liverpool in the Premier League. Following his retirement from soccer, Klavan has returned to Estonia to focus on how the sport is run at home. That transition away from the soccer pitch as a professional athlete has been challenging. He told me: 'It is a strange moment when you stop playing. You have twenty years with a lot of effort and the lucky ones make it to this elite level. This means that they sacrificed a lot, and then it stops at the age of 35 or 40 when you are at your peak as a human. Suddenly, you are told that you are useless. The question is, are you willing to go all in again and start learning?'
Klavan has had little doubt about what comes next. He wants to transform Estonian soccer. On the campaign trail for months, he is seeking to be the next chairman of the Estonian FA. Klavan served as a board member of the organization for several months before he stepped down in January. He disliked the governance culture. He explains: 'There was always talk about how the Estonian FA is run under Aivar Pohlak. It's a little bit dark. When you are not shown the whole financial budget as a board member - how it has been run, then I have a lot of question marks.'
Estonian soccer president since 2007, Pohlak has been one of the longest-serving officials in the game and very powerful at home. Previously, he served as president of Flora Tallinn. He is the chairman of Sport & Net Grupp. Abroad, he was a member of FIFA's ethics committee. He didn't respond to questions for this article.
Pohlak is not without controversy. His former wife accused him of domestic violence. A criminal investigation, with Pohlak at the heart, is underway into possible anti-competitive agreements between Estonian clubs. Even so, in March, at the Uefa Congress in Belgrade, Pohlak won a seat on the confederation's executive committee. Klavan describes his opponent as an 'enlightened monarch'. He, by contrast, promises to bring democracy and transparency to the Estonian FA.
MONACO, MONACO - AUGUST 29: Estonian Football Federation President Aivar Pohlak arrives in the red ... More carpet during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase Draw at Grimaldi Forum on August 29, 2024 in Monaco, Monaco. (Photo by Kristian Skeie - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
'In the last five to seven years, the enlightenment hasn't been there,' says Klavan. 'At the end of the day, the FA belongs to the clubs, belongs to the members. What we've got a little bit wrong in Estonia - transparency and open leadership, and to talk about all those things. It's really important that we understand how much money is coming in from UEFA and from FIFA. How is it distributed? What are our possibilities? It's not fully transparent in Estonia. There's too many grey areas where we don't have the whole information.'
But Klavan is up against it. He has little experience in administration. Few former players do. Today, Lise Klaveness in Norway, Levan Kobiashvili in Georgia and Dragan Dzajic in Serbia are ex-players to lead their national federation. It's the first time Pohlak is being challenged, but his longevity in the game and connections favor his re-election. In Belgrade, he boasted that he'd win with eighty percent of the vote. There have also been persistent accusations by domestic officials that Pohlak activates sleeper clubs to vote. Klavan says: 'It's a big problem. They are only active when the voting is starting. We need to change it - members who will decide the future of football should be active, not inactive.'
Under Pohlak, the national team has slid down the FIFA rankings - outside of the top hundred. The Estonians have never participated in the European championship. Klavan points to Iceland as an example to follow: the island nation took Europe and the world by storm despite its many limitations. The former Liverpool player says: 'We need to understand that we need to turn our weaknesses into strengths. Our weakness is our small population. The money is also not as big as in the other Nordic countries. That means we need to be smart.'
Klavan's campaign is in large part built around the improvement of coach education and capitalizing on Estonia's position as a tech hub. He sees himself as a leader, one inspired by Klopp: 'When you look back, he built up the whole club. Liverpool was a little bit out there for really long time and Jurgen was the leader who changed the club, not only the team, but the whole club. That shows the value he has as a human being, as a leader and as a manager.'
On 19 June, he will find out if his pitch will be enough to dethrone Pohlak and take the local game in a new direction.