Premier League: Instead of a pension: Schmadtke in Liverpool with a short-term contract

premier league
Instead of a pension: Schmadtke in Liverpool with a short-term contract

Sports director at Liverpool FC: Jörg Schmadtke. photo

© Tom Weller/dpa

After a disappointing season at Liverpool FC, sports director Jörg Schmadtke is to build a new team with coach Jürgen Klopp. But his contract doesn’t last very long.

Jörg Schmadtke should make Liverpool FC competitive again. The 59-year-old was presented as the new sporting director at the traditional English club and is said to work closely with coach Jürgen Klopp in the future.

Schmadtke initially signed for three months, as the former manager of VfL Wolfsburg reported in an interview with the “Sport1” portal. Liverpool had not given any information at the time.

“If we like each other, we can work together beyond the transfer window,” said Schmadtke, who is due to start work at Anfield on June 1. “Let’s see. Then we continue or not.” At the Europa League participants, Schmadtke succeeds Julian Ward, who is leaving the club this summer after more than ten years.

“A wealth of knowledge and experience”

Schmadtke brings “a wealth of knowledge and experience” with him, President Mike Gordon was quoted as saying by the owner company Fenway Sports Group. He will support Jürgen Klopp with the department for football operations, with the aim “that the club grows and develops in all areas”. The main thing is to build a new team.

A lot of work awaits the new sporting director. Former top performers such as Roberto Firmino and James Milner, as well as ex-Leipziger Naby Keita, who failed to assert himself at Anfield, are leaving the club. As fifth in the table, the Reds are not represented in the lucrative Champions League next season. After the messed-up season, the team, which last year won the FA Cup and the League Cup and only just missed out on the championship, is facing a long-overdue upheaval.

He has not had close ties to Klopp so far, said Schmadtke, who gave up his managerial post in Wolfsburg in January and actually retired. “We were in the Bundesliga at the same time. He as a coach, I as a sports director, we know each other. I know his agent Marc Kosicke better.” It was also Kosicke who suggested him to the Liverpool bosses.

Fulfill Klopp’s wishes

Schmadtke wants to try to fulfill Klopp’s wishes. “The coach’s influence on transfers is greater in England than in Germany, where a sports director or sporting director keeps everything in one hand. Jürgen Klopp sets the priorities,” he emphasized. “We work with him with a team of data analysts, scouts and so on, so he can then choose from a list of players who he wants to work with.”

The news of Schmadtke’s new job was well received by his former employer in Wolfsburg. “Liverpool FC is a world club, there are only a few comparable clubs in this category, so I’m really happy for him,” said Marcel Schäfer, Schmadtke’s successor as VfL’s sporting director, on Tuesday. “And when a club like that comes knocking, it’s extraordinary and for him it’s also a great recognition and appreciation of his career.”

The former Fortuna Düsseldorf and SC Freiburg goalkeeper gave up his job at VfL Wolfsburg in January after four and a half years. Before joining Lower Saxony, he worked for Alemannia Aachen, Hannover 96 and 1. FC Köln.

dpa

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