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Although in footballher fan Liverpool I never believed the “cheat” sold by Jurgen Klopp in the big port. I have always considered this a very clever piece of his communication tactic, with which he could be considered successful even in years when the team faltered, as happened at least twice during his tenure. Essentially, after 2020 and winning the “pandemic championship”, the team took steps backwards. The Carabao Cup is not in the eyes of any big team fan a success. Even third-class elevens have conquered it. But that is another matter.
The man with three hearts
Really, how would it look to fans and journalists, for example, if o Pep Guardiola“multi-winning” manager of Manchester City, but nurtured and successful as a child in Barcelona, behaved accordingly by projecting a sea heart?
It bothered me just as much to see this excessive love, which he felt as a “man with three hearts” for the German Mainz and Dortmund, as well as to observe a manager doing something that might be common for footballers, but unusual for his colleagues. In other words, to have signed an agreement to wear shoes of another company in the games, from that of the team’s official supplier. Apparently the offer was better. Like the advertising deals he occasionally did for cars or beers. The suspicion that money was something to which he always gave priority could of course only be explained intuitively. She was annoying if for no other reason, but because she always cloaked herself behind melodramatic statements and behaviors that played on the romantic illusions of especially older fans.
Did he need the money?
Now intuition becomes certainty. A gold-paid coach, who apparently has no anxiety about surviving for the next 100 years or so, decides to become an employee – of course, again paid in gold – in a brand, which, especially for his fellow German fans, is the symbol of extravagant commercialism exploitation of the most popular sport worldwide.
Jurgen Klopp will be from the beginning of 2025 the “Global Head of Soccer”, the global football head of Red Bull, the energy drink company, which entered football, not of course from a sporting spirit, but to promote its plan to become a global business-empire.
A cuff for the Westphalians
It seems like a slap in the face to Borussia Dortmund fans that a few days earlier they had celebrated his return to Germany inside their giant home, the 80,000-seater Westphalia Stadium in a match set up to honor two veteran footballers, but turned into a cult fiesta for Klopp. Red Bull’s entry into football is more than a red flag for the yellows of Dortmund. The Austrian company looks like a rapist of the idea and traditions, history and physiognomy of the groups. We are talking about the fans, who raise banners with slogans against the “UEFA Mafia” of the European confederation, which tries in every way to inflate its revenues, ultimately altering the essence of the sport. How should the loyal Westphalian now accept the fact that his former hero is becoming a “showcase” for the hated opponent, a group-business without a history.
When everything is sold and bought
The examples speak volumes. The beginning was made with the small and medium-sized Austria of Salzburg. The energy drink company from Austria was looking for a “cheap” compatriot to use as a billboard. The team’s traditional violet gave way to Red Bull red. And the title became Red Bull Salzburg. The successes in the “provincial” Austrian championship did not cost much.
In Germany, however, it is forbidden to have a company name as a team mark. So the team from Leipzig, the group’s next big football investment, uses RB, which refers to the drink that gives… wings, but arises from the imaginative Rasenballsport. A description of soccer for the totally ignorant: Ball sport on grass. As you know, marketing ideas are inexhaustible. With such ideas, the rule was also overcome, which says that 50%+1 of the team’s shares must belong to the base, to the members of the club. Where here the role of “members” has been assumed by some loyal employees of the company.
Red Bull didn’t come in as just another logo, a sign in football stadiums. She has made football a “brand” of her public image, which extends to a number of sports, with a particular preference for some extreme and more successful her entry into Formula 1.
In football, there have been no similar successes of global scope. The team from Salzburg has won back-to-back championships, but here the “best first in the village” does not apply. The “Bulls” from Leipzig have so far lifted only two cups. Will boss Klopp now manage to make it a world power, using his charm, his “gift” in communication? The first reactions of the fans show more anger of being cheated than enthusiasm.
Another logic
Of course we live in the era of commercialization of sports. The difference with similar investments, for example by American owners, is the honesty with which they clarify from the beginning that they see the teams as businesses, which must have balanced balance sheets and eventually generate profits. The strange ways of financing RB Leipzig show that the point here is to use the team as another pillar of advertising and promotion of the company. The difference with the Arab big team owners is that they too boast about the successes of their teams, just like the fans themselves. Just one way… multiplied by a few hundred million. Klopp once boasted that Liverpool, although a company too, had managed to preserve elements of its history, its character, its relationship with the local community.
In Mainz they had also held a fiesta in his honor. There they have until now had a right to believe that he has them in his heart. He played and coached there for 18 years. There he began a career that saw him honored by the President of the German Republic with the Order of Merit as the country’s best “ambassador” in Britain. As for his justification for social sensibilities, that probably clouded after it was announced that his salary to oversee the management of Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, New York Red Bulls, two teams in Brazil and a third division team in Japan would it is 10 to 12 million a year.
He couldn’t help himself
There is also something else that bothered the fans in Dortmund, but mainly in Liverpool. Apparently, Klopp had agreed on this “transfer” as early as the end of 2022, while he was still the coach of the “Reds”, with the founder of Red Bull and then dying Austrian tycoon Dietrich Matesic. It was the year Liverpool went from bad to worse and eventually finished just fifth.
The early announcement of his decision to step down early last year also had a negative effect on the team, with the “Reds” falling far short of championship contention early on and finishing third.
There are of course also some strange coincidences, which are illuminated in a different way now. The frequent movements of players from the company’s teams to the British port. A completely unsuccessful preparation in Austria that summer of 2022, the move now of his former assistant as the first coach in Salzburg. Obviously the relationship was built slowly but surely and this is another factor that reinforces its debunking. It was a well thought out decision.
Irony of fate
The funny thing is that the draw for the “reformed” Champions League this year meant that Liverpool had to travel to Leipzig on October 23rd to play Klopp’s… basic team. Logically, he will use the opportunity for new communication appearances, where he will explain that his motivation is again the love for the sport and the “children” and not the mammoth salary. Unofficially, of course, all this because his contract runs from 1.1.2025.
Whether it will convince is more than doubtful. As Berlin’s taz glibly wrote: “Now the man who so convincingly displayed a blue-collar demeanor at Dortmund and Liverpool that you couldn’t help but believe him is being exposed as a hypocrite.”
Kostas Argiros for DW
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