Jurgen Klopp spells out Liverpool’s reduced financial clout amid COVID-19 crisis
Jurgen Klopp has outlined the harsh realities of football’s new economic landscape and insisted pay cuts and huge transfer fees do not go hand-in-hand.
Liverpool last week saw Timo Werner, a long-standing target, agree a move to Chelsea in principle; they will trigger his £53million release clause with RB Leipzig and have finalised a long-term contract worth £200,000 per week. It is essentially a financial commitment worth more than £100million.
Given the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic and the continued uncertainty for the future, Liverpool were not prepared to make such an investment for the Germany international, who would not have been a guaranteed starter.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has described Timo Werner and Kai Havertz as ‘great’ players
The star duo from the Bundesliga have been linked with a move to Liverpool in recent months
It illustrates the belt-tightening that even a club in Liverpool’s healthy financial position must take and Klopp, during an interview with Sky Germany, explained why it would be irresponsible to take on big deals at a time when revenue streams and matchday income has been decimated.
‘There are a lot of good players on this planet,’ Klopp said. ‘Timo Werner is a great player; Kai Havertz (Bayer Leverkusen) is a great player. Right time, opportunity – everything has to come together. Six, seven weeks ago, we didn’t know if we could play again this year.
‘If we hadn’t played the second half of the season, we would have thought, ‘OK, when can you really play football again?’ And now it starts right away.. We act as if everything is already settled. It’s not settled. We use this little loophole we’ve been left to play football again.
Klopp has pointed out that Liverpool may be unable to compete in the transfer market
Werner now looks set to join Chelsea with the Blues ready to pay his £53m release clause
‘Discussing with the players about things like salary waivers and on the other hand buying a player for £50-60m, we have to explain.’ Sportsmail reported on April 2 that Liverpool had placed all contractual discussion and player recruitment plans on hold and Klopp does not anticipate anything changing quickly, as there is no indication when – or if – normality will return.
‘Everything else we have to see the moment it happens,’ said Klopp. ‘We can’t pretend now that everything’s going to be fine in the future. It’s rather quiet here (at Liverpool) at the moment, I think it’s safe to say.
‘If you want to take it seriously and run a normal business and depend on income and have no idea how much you will earn – especially because we don’t know when we can start playing with spectators again. At the moment, all clubs are losing money.
‘Without spectators, we have to pay back the season tickets and probably sell none next year. At least maybe without the first 10 or 15 games. The VIP areas won’t be packed and the tickets won’t be sold. This will have an impact on other partners and things will look a bit different.’
