Klopp defends Red Bull move after fan backlash

Jürgen Klopp has defended his decision to head up Red Bull’s group of football clubs, saying he “didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes” after his decision prompted a backlash from fans of his former teams in Germany.

Klopp is taking over as the drinks company’s head of global football from January in what was widely seen as a surprise move. It will be his first job after leaving Liverpool at the end of last season.

“I didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes, definitely not, and personally I love all of my ex-clubs,” Klopp said in an interview released Wednesday on a podcast hosted by former Real Madrid and Germany midfielder Toni Kroos.

Klopp suggested any decision he made to coach another club would also have disappointed some fans.

“I really don’t know what exactly I could have done for everyone to be happy,” he said.

Red Bull, and especially its RB Leipzig team, are widely resented by many German football fans, who see the drinks company as an unwelcome corporate presence trying to buy success.

Fans at Klopp’s former clubs like Borussia Dortmund have criticized the move, and Mainz fans held up banners this month expressing their disappointment and questioning whether he was “crazy.”

The German coach spent 18 years at Mainz as a player and coach before joining Dortmund in 2008, where he went on to lead the club to two Bundesliga titles and the Champions League final.

Klopp said he had never viewed Red Bull’s involvement in football “so critically,” and suggested it played an important role in bringing high-level club football back to the former East Germany with the Leipzig project.

Klopp previously said he planned to take a “long break” after leaving Liverpool, where he coached his last game in May after nine years with the club.

“I’m 57 so I can still work for a couple more years but I don’t really see myself on the sideline [as a coach] for the time being,” he said. “But it was always clear that I wasn’t going to do nothing at all. And then this story with Red Bull came into the picture, and for me it’s outstanding.”

Klopp said he saw his Red Bull role primarily as an “adviser” working together with coaches at the clubs backed by the drinks giant.

“I always had the feeling that the coach is very, very often the loneliest person at the club,” he said.