Liverpool players not touching This Is Anfield sign WASN’T a tradition before Jurgen Klopp

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It is a common misperception that players cannot touch the famous ‘This Is Anfield’ sign until they have won something, with Jurgen Klopp starting the tradition via a misunderstanding. It has become an accepted tradition that Liverpool players must earn the right to touch the famous sign when walking out of the tunnel, but it was not the case before Klopp’s arrival.

“Before the game when we went down the stairs, my Dortmund friends asked me ‘Do they all touch the This Is Anfield sign?’ I said ‘No’,” Klopp explained. “I don’t really know exactly how it works but I think you need to win something before, I’m not sure.” • READ: This Is Anfield – The story of Liverpool’s famous sign and why players touch it Klopp was then misquoted by a Liverpool journalist on X (formerly Twitter), which was then attributed and wrongly recited in hundreds of articles as the German saying he had told his players not to touch it.

“Maybe these players one day will be allowed to do it.” Klopp later enforced the tradition and ‘banned’ his players from touching the famous sign until they had won a major honour – even telling a player off after he watched him touch the sign on a club video. Bizarrely, former Red Thiago previously claimed he was told by Fernando Torres not to touch the sign, even though Torres was pictured touching it on his Liverpool unveiling – as was regularly the case with new signings prior to Klopp’s tenure.