Jurgen Klopp makes touching offer to Liverpool fan Sven-Goran Eriksson
The former England manager, who announced he has terminal cancer, grew up as a fan of the Reds and has been invited by the German to spend ‘a few wonderful hours’ with the club
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Your support makes all the difference.Jurgen Klopp has promised to give Sven-Goran Eriksson a warm welcome to Liverpool and to let him do his job for a day.
The former England manager announced he has terminal cancer and delivered a defiant message to fans, while also revealing he is a Liverpool supporter who wished he could have taken charge of the club.
And Eriksson could be in the dugout at Anfield in March when a Liverpool Legends team containing some of their former players take on their Ajax counterparts in a charity game with Robbie Fowler, who played for the Swede during his reign with England, saying a call had been made to help arrange it.
Klopp believes Liverpool will do their best to give the 75-year-old, who also managed Lazio, Roma, Sampdoria, Benfica and Manchester City, a wonderful day.
He said: “It was obviously very touching news when you heard about it. I heard for the first time about his admiration or love for Liverpool and that he was a fan for his whole life. I heard now about the Legends and stuff like that. I’m not in charge of that.
“The only thing I can say is absolutely he’s very welcome to come here and he can sit in my seat in my office and do my job for a day if he wants. That’s no problem.
“Being on the sideline might be a little bit more difficult. To have him here and show him everything and how this wonderful club developed over the years, I think that’s definitely something we will tell him. He can come over and have a few wonderful hours here, I’m sure.”
Meanwhile, Klopp has denied that it was his choice to appoint Jorg Schmadtke as Liverpool’s sporting director and insisted he will not be in charge of finding a replacement – or that the shortlist will contain five Germans.
Schmadtke came out of retirement to work for Liverpool and is part-way through a one-year contract. Liverpool are yet to announce if he will leave when his deal is up.
But Klopp said: “There must be other people in the club who talk about that. My relationship with him is good, it was top with the other guys as well. So many people work in and around that department, they are always here. Jorg helped a lot in the last window.
“I’m pretty sure that everyone thinks that Jorg Schmadtke was my decision but it wasn’t. It’s not that I have a list of sporting directors, five of them are German, then six, seven and eight are from Switzerland. Then we go find an English guy. Absolutely not.
“I think it’s important that the right people are in but I don’t have time to find the right people, if someone else tells me these are the right people then I can easily work with them.”
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