Jurgen Klopp gives passionate response to Chelsea and Roman Abramovich questions

 

 

Jurgen Klopp has made history by being the first Premier League manager to come out and say that sanctions on Roman Abramovich and Chelsea are the appropriate response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

And the Liverpool manager feels that this is the perfect moment for football’s authorities to look into where the money spent in teams comes from, with tighter controls on Premier League owners.

 

With a shadow hanging over Chelsea, Klopp says he has nothing but compassion for the club’s staff, but he adds: “One man is responsible for it, Vladimir Putin.”

“I don’t know about Roman Abramovich but it is clear he is pretty close [to Putin] and I think the British government is right.

“It is pretty obvious where the money is coming from. Everyone knew it, but we accepted it. That’s our fault. It is society’s fault so we accepted it.

“Now we cannot accept it anymore and so we punish them, it is not Chelsea’s fault. Not at all.”

 

Klopp believes though, that there needs to be far more scrutiny over owners, with clubs increasingly being bought by oligarchs, super-rich individuals and even nation states.

 

He pointed not only to the mess at Chelsea, with so many links to what some have described as “dirty” Russian money, but also the situation at Newcastle, where the Saudi Arabia government has links to the club.

And the Reds boss said: “We don’t even think about where the money is coming from… now we start obviously thinking about where the money is coming from.

“I think that is a good idea to be honest. We should think about that a bit more. Did anyone really care when Roman Abramovich came to Chelsea?

“Did anyone really care when Newcastle got taken over? Do supporters really care? It is a question.”