Official: Jürgen Klopp Becomes Global Head of Soccer for Red Bull Group
The former Liverpool manager will take on an advisory and oversight role with an exit clause for the German National Team in 2025.
For Jürgen Klopp, inevitably, there was always going to be a next job after managing Liverpool, with few ever expecting the 57-year-old German to give up the game for good even if it was clear he needed a break and might never re-embrace the stressful life of a manager of a high level football club.
Today, we know what that next job will be: Klopp will become Head of Soccer for Red Bull group, a role tailor made for him by Oliver Mintzlaff, with the Red Bull Corporate Projects CEO making bringing Klopp into the fold his top priority after the German manager announced he would depart from Liverpool.
The role will see Klopp overseeing and advising coaching and player development for Leipzig in the German Bundesliga, Salzburg in Austria, and New York in MLS along with a smattering of other football interests. He will also have an exit clause allowing him to manage the Germany national team.
However, it’s a move that may negatively impact Klopp’s legacy with fans in Germany. While Liverpool fans—and English football fans generally—mostly have few strong feelings about Red Bull’s football interests, in Germany the corporation is seen as the most destructive force in the sport domestically.
Taking clubs previously not in the national conversation, pumping funds in to make them competitive, and seeking to undercut Germany’s tradition of fan ownership while focusing on branding centres the corporation rather than any local ties that might exist are all points of major contention for German fans.
For fans of the Bundesliga—including Dortmund, whose supporters are some of the most vocally opposed to Red Bull group—it’s a football network filling a similar space as Manchester City and The City Group for English fans—and Liverpool fans in particular who saw Klopp trying compete against them.
Hopefully for Klopp, then, the new role can scratch whatever itch he’s been feeling to continue to play a role in football—just without the stress that comes with managing a top club—but for many supporters of clubs he used to manage at it may be a bit of the shine came off his legacy with today’s news.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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