Gala in Nuremberg
Klopp accepts the award with a cheeky saying
10/25/2025 – 3:02 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Former Liverpool and Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp has been awarded a culture prize. He was in his usual good mood during the acceptance speech.
Jürgen Klopp has received the Walther Bensemann Prize from the German Academy for Football Culture. The 58-year-old accepted the award in a good mood at a gala in the Nuremberg Tafelhalle. Laudator Thiemo Müller from “kicker” praised Klopp as an excellent football teacher, “but also as a humanist, a humorist, a bridge builder.”
Müller said that as a coach, Klopp was never just about football, but always about human values. He saw himself as a cultural worker. In his speech, Müller quoted Klopp’s well-known sentence: “Some collect titles, I collect relationships.”
Klopp was visibly proud of the award. “I am a very, very proud honoree tonight,” he said at the gala. When he thanked his former companions Christian Heidel and DFL boss Aki Watzke, he responded to the request that the two of them stand up with a joke: “No, they can’t get up there anymore at their age.”
Humor also played a role in the “Football Saying of the Year”. The former Freiburger Nils Petersen received this title this year. After retiring, he said: “I used to watch 80 minutes, today I watch 90.”
Petersen prevailed against Lothar Matthäus in a close audience decision. The record national player commented on the national team’s goalkeeping situation with the words: “Then the dice will be reshuffled.” The award has been commemorating “kicker” founder Walther Bensemann since 2006. Previous winners include Franz Beckenbauer, Otto Rehhagel, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Joachim Löw.