I Don’t Want To Work Anywhere Else – Klopp

Jurgen Klopp has told German magazine Stern he extended his Liverpool contract this summer because he has no interest in working anywhere else and says has no desire to lead Borussia Dortmund again.

Klopp, 49, signed a new six-year deal last month despite only taking charge at Anfield in October and said: “I asked myself ‘Where do I still want to work?’ rather than ‘What do I still want to win?’ and couldn’t think of many places.

“Do I want another club in Germany? Nope. In England? Nope. In Asia, Russia or the United Arab Emirates? Nope, nope, nope. And then I thought that I am already at the right club and ‘Why should I worry about how long I am here for?’

“If I am at the end of my career and have managed only three clubs then at least they were great clubs.”

Klopp spent the bulk of his playing career with Mainz before beginning his managerial career there and then made his mark globally after his 2008 switch to Dortmund, where he secured back-to-back Bundesliga titles as well as reaching the 2013 Champions League final.

He made an early return to BVB with Liverpool in last season’s Europa League quarterfinal, joking at the time that it was preferable to head to Dortmund “than, I don’t know, North Korea or somewhere.”

He says he has “loved Mainz, and I’ve loved Dortmund, and I still have many, many friends there,” but that it is too early to return to the Westfalenstadion just to watch a match. “That’s not possible with my face,” he said.

He wished Dortmund “all the luck and success so they will never again think about getting me back.”

His focus for now has switched to Liverpool and the Premier League, but he is still adapting to the financial power in England. The new TV deal is worth over £5 billion and he said those billions are “moved from one club to another.”

He added: “We deal in fantasy money. That’s the one side. But the thing is a bit more complex. This money is only there because football exists. It moves in a closed circuit.”

The German has already backed away from a war of words with Jose Mourinho after having questioned Manchester United’s world-record £89.3m (€105m) deal for Paul Pogba, but he maintains that he would never get involved in the top end of the transfer market.

He said: “You could play along, sure, and fight for the same players — ‘You want to pay €105m? Cool, we’ll bid €140m’ — but that would be insane.”

He said he would instead look to establish an atmosphere that lays the foundations for long-term success, explaining: “That makes more sense for a club like Liverpool than to try to buy success with a vengeance.

“And on top of that, there is the danger that everything’s over once the sheikh is no longer interested.”

He appears to be enjoying life in England, though, and feels he has been able to express his personality despite the language barrier.

“The fantastic thing about the English is that they just accept you as you are, even me, in my little ‘speech prison.’ They get the joke behind my mix of words,” he said. “Most of the time, that is.”

However, Klopp said the world pays far too much attention to his words.

“A football manager is listened to in a way that actually makes you wonder about the intelligence of the human race,” he said.

“I recently met a famous brain surgeon in New York and in his brain, when it comes to intelligence, there are definitely 80 percent more light bulbs alight than in mine. But what happens? He started to stutter because he is crazy about football and this person from LFC was suddenly standing in front of him.”