{"id":60938,"date":"2026-09-17T14:31:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/jurgen-klopp-new-germany-coach-wants-to-reclaim-flag-amid-elections\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:31:41","slug":"jurgen-klopp-new-germany-coach-wants-to-reclaim-flag-amid-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/jurgen-klopp-new-germany-coach-wants-to-reclaim-flag-amid-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Jurgen Klopp: New Germany coach wants to ‘reclaim’ flag amid elections"},"content":{"rendered":"


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New Germany coach Jurgen Klopp says his team can help ensure “national pride is not entrusted to the wrong people” after a recent far-right election victory.<\/b><\/p>\n

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won 43.8% of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt,<\/a> falling just short of securing an absolute majority in the regional parliament.<\/p>\n

The anti-immigration party also expects strong results in elections on Sunday in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a news conference to announce his first squad, Klopp stressed he is not a political “expert” but added: “We had an election where some people may have thought it was OK, while others were saying, ‘my God, what is happening here?’<\/p>\n

“From my perspective as a sportsman, I can say that I would very much like to reclaim the flag for myself, for all of us.<\/p>\n

“I want it so that when someone waves it, no one thinks: ‘What is wrong with you?’ Instead, I want people to understand: You are happy and realise how lucky you were to be born, grow up, or move to this wonderful country.”<\/p>\n

No far-right party has controlled a German state since World War Two, when the ruling Nazi party carried out the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

“I do not want to entrust national pride to the wrong people,” said Klopp, who prefers the term “positive patriotism” to “national pride”, which he fears can be misunderstood.<\/p>\n

The former Liverpool boss added: “I can be proud to be German while also being open-minded and diverse, and kind and friendly.”<\/p>\n

Klopp also said it was more important that the country had enough doctors and caregivers but said football can “foster a sense of community, so that people can truly feel the power of sport”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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New Germany coach Jurgen Klopp says his team can help ensure “national pride is not entrusted to the wrong people” after a recent far-right election victory. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won 43.8% of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, falling just short of securing an absolute majority in the regional parliament. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60940,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60938\/revisions\/60940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}