Red Bull hiring Jurgen Klopp to oversee their network of clubs has led football fans in Germany protesting against the former Liverpool manager during Bundesliga matches
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Jurgen Klopp, German Football Manager, watches on during the Men's Preliminary Rounds on day one of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games
Jurgen Klopp starts his new role as head of global soccer at Red Bull on New Year's Day
(Image: Getty Images)
Holstein Kiel fans held up a banner displaying Jurgen Klopp's face in red crosshairs during their latest Bundesliga match with RB Leipzig. The display comes less than a month before Klopp starts overseeing Red Bull's network of clubs as their head of global soccer.
Leipzig is the most prominent of them. However, the company also controls teams in Brazil, New York, and Salzburg, most recently acquiring a minority ownership stake in Championship club Leeds United earlier this year.
The former Liverpool manager returning to football to work for Red Bull has seen fans in Germany protest against the decision. How the company founded Leipzig after purchasing the playing rights of fifth-tier club SSV Markranstadt remains hugely unpopular in the country.
After the announcement in October, fans of his former club, Mainz, notably unfurled banners critical of the career move, claiming: "Everything we gave you, you forgot." Klopp had claimed he owed everything to the team where he played for over a decade before beginning his managerial career.
The banners in Kiel this weekend had an altogether more threatening tone. Klopp and Leipzig chief executive of corporate projects and investments Oliver Mintzlaff - alongside Hoffenheim owner Dietmar Hopp and former Hannover 96 managing director Martin Kind - were dubbed the "gravediggers of German football".
All four were shown in crosshairs, which Kiel president Steffen Schneekloth stated was "unacceptable". He added: "The club's opinion on this is clear and unambiguous.
"We therefore condemn the content of the choreography in the strongest possible terms. We do not accept the way in which people are treated here, and we apologise in the strongest possible terms to the defamed people."
On Sunday evening, the German sports magazine Kicker reported that the country's football association (the DFB) were investigating the incidents. Leipzig's next match is at home against Aston Villa in the Champions League on Tuesday before they host Eintracht Frankfurt this coming Sunday and play away at Bayern Munich five days later in their final game before the Bundesliga's winter break.