The Azerbaijan FA’s general secretary Elkhan Mammadov has launched a blistering attack on Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.
The German was critical recently about UEFA’s decision to award this season’s Europa League final to Baku, where Arsenal and Chelsea will contest the showpiece event later this month.
Mammadov has weighed in: “I was unpleasantly surprised by the remarks of Jurgen Klopp,” he said, as per the Daily Mail. “He always gave an impression of a very positive person. Moreover, we all know that he is a great specialist who has achieved really outstanding results in football.
“But with all this, I strongly disagree with his opinion that football should be geographically limited. We must respect and promote the values of football. And one of our main values is the expansion of the boundaries of football and its globalisation.”
OPINION
Obviously the Liverpool faithful will be Team Klopp on this one, but it’s easy to see this from Mammadov’s point of view as well. Clearly he is going to support the fact that Baku got the Europa League final and, while getting there is obviously not ideal for fans, you can see where he’s coming from. Who’s to say that some cities should have a monopoly over the biggest events in the football calendar while others never get to host them? Obviously we all love having Champions League and Europa League finals in places like Madrid, London, Paris etc., but these other, less natural-fit cities deserve to have the chance to enjoy a major footballing event as well. There will be people in Baku who have never seen a match of this magnitude and so it will be great for them to be able to attend the match. However, you can see what Klopp was getting at when he made his comments, as well. Baku isn’t ideal for a final of a European football competition, we all know that. Still, the decision has been made now and so everyone just needs to get on with it.
