Jurgen Klopp has said the Reds will be reluctant to sign unvaccinated players as the Covid crisis continues to affect top-class sport nearly two years into the pandemic.
Klopp, who has been vocal in encouraging people to get jabbed, says while it’s impossible to force anyone, the reality is players could miss out in the transfer market if they are deemed by suitors as health risks.
‘I think it (being vaccinated) will be influential, definitely, in who clubs sign,’ said Klopp.
‘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, it’s not that he thinks ‘I don’t care about the others’ but he is.’
With regulations tightening and fans now having to show either proof of vaccination or a negative lateral flow test to enter stadiums, Klopp thinks any unvaccinated player will become a burden on the club – making them less attractive.
‘From an organizational point of view, it gets really messy,’ he said.
‘We’d have to find different scenarios. 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. If you really want to follow the protocols, it is incredibly difficult to do.
‘If we have to travel to a country to play international football and we come back, he has to get self-isolated, all these kinds of things. Of course, it is going to be influential [in signing].
‘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.’
Worryingly the EFL reported that a quarter of their players don’t plan to get vaccinated leaving Klopp concerned about this season’s FA Cup particularly with matches played at smaller lower league grounds.
Liverpool are at home to League One Shrewsbury in the third round next month and despite their manager Steve Cotterill spending time in intensive care with Covid, not all of their players are jabbed.