“LIVERPOOL WAS LIKE A GARDEN THAT NEEDED WORK TO BRING THE FLOWERS BACK”
If you thought you knew Jurgen Klopp, think again. In his office at the club’s Melwood training ground, the Liverpool manager sat down for a chat with Huyton-born comic, presenter and ex-non-league footballer John Bishop for the forthcoming book
A Game of Two Halves.
In a fascinating and revealing conversation, Bishop spoke to the 52-year-old German about a wide range of topics including
Pep Guardiola, Christianity, restoring Liverpool’s position at the summit of European football thanks to June’s Champions League final victory over Tottenham, and who should eventually replace him in the Anfield dugout.
The proceeds from the book will go to the UN Refugee Agency,
UNHCR, to raise awareness of their work with child refugees. So, it seemed only natural that Bishop should start on that subject…
BISHOP Thanks for doing this. Do you know what it’s for?
KLOPP Charity? I read the word ‘charity’ and your name and said OK!
BISHOP It’s to raise money for refugee kids, because football is the most universal game in the world. And it also, to some degree, reflects what is happening in a country. For example, we have this dire situation with Brexit and at the same time racism has become a really big issue in football again.
KLOPP One hundred per cent. A French magazine journalist was talking to me about racism the other day. He told me that George Weah and a few other very famous former footballers felt under-appreciated when it came to awards such as the Ballon d’Or. They were pretty sure that it was racism. Wow. I couldn’t understand it.
It’s not how I see the world. As far as I’m concerned, the dressing room is about whether or not you can play football, regardless of your colour, religion or race. You can either play football or you can’t. That’s all that matters. The other stuff, nobody thinks about.
We have a prayer room for Mo Salah and Sadio Mané. There are other Islamic procedures that we respect including washing before a game, which we include in pre-match preparations. Everybody here accepts that we are all different, but we are all 100 per cent on the same page.
I think it’s a relatively new thing, particularly for British football. I remember the abuse John Barnes had when he became a Liverpool player in 1987. When Howard Gayle became our first black player 10 years before that, people said, ‘Liverpool don’t sign black players.’ I’m not saying there was a policy; it’s just that those players stood out. They were the first ones. Football is now so international, which is brilliant. A decade ago,
