Jurgen Klopp insists a solution must be found to the scheduling of cup ties in England following Liverpool’s Carabao Cup/Club World Cup fiasco.
Liverpool’s involvement in the Club World Cup and progression into the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup led to an issue regarding the scheduling of their matches.
The Reds will play in the tournament organised by FIFA, with their semi-final match taking place on Wednesday December 18.
The Carabao Cup quarter-finals will happen on December 17 or 18 which led to Liverpool having a meeting with the EFL with a view to changing the date of their tie at Aston Villa.
However, it was announced on Tuesday that Liverpool’s match at Villa Park would go ahead as scheduled on December 17.
This means the Reds will have to field two different squads as the matches in Birmingham and Qatar are less than 24 hours apart.
Klopp is unhappy with the situation and called on the football authorities to find a solution to ensure something like this does not happen again in the future.
Speaking after Liverpool’s 2-1 victory over Genk in the Champions League, Klopp said: “I don’t want to cancel a competition – I’m from Germany so why should I cancel English competitions?
“But it still should be possible to talk about the problems. And that’s what I did. Some people don’t like that but I cannot change it.
“The problems are obvious. Every year we do the same again and some people find it funny and think ‘oh look at that they have to play five games in three days, let’s see how that will work out’.
“We cannot carry on like this, come on, so that’s why I ask we sit at a table and find a solution.
“These solutions, to me, sound like another problem.”
And when asked about whether Liverpool would prioritise the Carabao Cup or Club World Cup, the German admitted he didn’t know what the approach would be yet.
He added: “No, we don’t know exactly yet. We have an idea on how we’ll do it but it’s too early to speak about that.
“We had to make a decision now because all the other alternatives had more problems than solutions.
“It didn’t work out so we said ‘ok, that’s how we can do as good as it’s possible for us but all the rest we have a bit of time to think about that.
“We have more important things to do…but in these next couple of weeks we will make a decision on how it will exactly look but in the end they will play a Liverpool team 100 per cent.”
