Unvaxxed players ‘constant threat to us all’ – Liverpool boss Klopp
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has continued to make his disdain clear for anyone who is unvaccinated, saying footballers who haven’t been jabbed are “a constant threat for all of us.”
Klopp has been increasingly vocal with his calls for players and the broader population to get inoculated against Covid-19, previously claiming that not doing so was similar to drunk driving.
Speaking ahead of Liverpool’s Premier League match against Tottenham on Sunday, Klopp was asked whether a player’s vaccine status would affect the club’s transfer policy approaching the opening of the January window.
“We are not close to signing a player but, yes, [vaccination status] would be influential, definitely,” said the German.
“If a player is not vaccinated at all, he is a constant threat for all of us.
"He doesn’t want to be a threat, of course, it is not that he thinks, ‘Oh my God, I don’t care about the others,’ but he is, and we have to find different scenarios.”
Klopp claimed that the logistics and potential segregation of unvaccinated players might also be a factor.
“He has to change in a different dressing room, he has to eat in a different dining room, he has to sit in a different bus, he has to drive in a different car,” said the Liverpool boss.
“From an organizational point of view, it gets really messy. If you really want to follow the protocols, it is incredibly difficult to do.
"If one gets Covid and he was in the last four days around him, he will be in isolation.
“If we have to travel to a country to play international football and we come back, he has to self-isolate – all these kinds of things.
“Of course it will be influential. We have to do all these kinds of things, like building extra buildings for unvaccinated players, and it will not happen.
"Hopefully, it will not be necessary in the future.”
Liverpool lost three players – including influential duo Virgil van Dijk and Fabinho – after positive Covid tests before their last match against Newcastle.
Their rivals on Sunday, Spurs, have been among the hardest hit of all Premier League clubs in recent days, having seen the cancelation of their UEFA Europa Conference League game against Rennes and the postponement of domestic meetings with Brighton and Leicester.
More broadly, the Premier League suffered five postponements due to Covid on Saturday, with just one fixture – Leeds versus Arsenal – going ahead.
The Premier League is set to host an emergency meeting on Monday where a suspension of matches is expected to be discussed just as the competition approaches its traditionally busy festive period.
Statistics from October, which were the last shared by the Premier League, revealed that 81% of its stars had received at least one jab, while 68% have been given two.
That figure is some way behind other leagues in Europe, where competitions such as La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga have reported rates above 90% for fully vaccinated players.
