title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN, the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations, was created in 1967 specifically promoting interregional governmental cooperation in order to maximize regional security within the area. As the region consists of not only nations neighboring China, but nations throughout the South China Sea, the involvement of ASEAN seeks to promote solutions to conflicts. ASEAN follows international law relatively strictly, and China does what it can to achieve power and territory in the region. In 1982, ASEAN and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) created a distinct outline on the extent of territorial claim each nation has within the Region, pushing China away from areas surrounding the islands within SouthEast Asia. However, within recent years, China has demanded to exceed the legal claims of the UNCLOS agreement, claiming that they have a right to various areas given to other nations. With this external pressure, ASEAN’s routine of having conferences and meetings to ensure peace and regional alignment has been proven to not counter conflicts caused by external characters such as China.


title: ASEAN

text: In 1990, Malaysia proposed the creation of an East Asia Economic Caucus composed of the members of ASEAN, China, Japan, and South Korea. It intended to counterbalance the growing US influence in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Asia as a whole. However, the proposal failed because of strong opposition from the US and Japan. Work for further integration continued, and the ASEAN Plus Three, consisting of ASEAN, China, Japan, and South Korea, was created in 1997.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN Plus Three is a forum that functions as a coordinator of co-operation between the ASEAN and the three East Asian nations of China, South Korea, and Japan. Government leaders, ministers, and senior officials from the ten members of the ASEAN and the three East Asian states consult on an increasing range of issues. The ASEAN Plus Three is the latest development of Southeast Asia-East Asia regional co-operation. In the past, proposals, such as South Korea's call for an Asian Common Market in 1970 and Japan's 1988 suggestion for an Asian Network, have been made to bring closer regional co-operation.


title: ASEAN

text: The first leaders' meetings were held in 1996, and 1997 to deal with Asia–Europe Meeting issues, and China and Japan each wanted regular summit meetings with ASEAN members afterwards. The group's significance and importance were strengthened by the Asian Financial Crisis. In response to the crisis, ASEAN closely cooperated with China, South Korea, and Japan. Since the implementation of the Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation in 1999 at the Manila Summit, ASEAN Plus Three finance ministers have been holding periodic consultations. ASEAN Plus Three, in establishing the Chiang Mai Initiative, has been credited as forming the basis for financial stability in Asia, the lack of such stability having contributed to the Asian Financial Crisis.


title: ASEAN

text: Since the process began in 1997, ASEAN Plus Three has also focused on subjects other than finance such as the areas of food and energy security, financial co-operation, trade facilitation, disaster management, people-to-people contacts, narrowing the development gap, rural development, and poverty alleviation, human trafficking, labour movement, communicable diseases, environment and sustainable development, and transnational crime, including counter-terrorism. With the aim of further strengthening the nations' co-operation, East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) II was established at the 13th ASEAN Plus Three Summit on 29 October 2010 in Hanoi to stock-take, review, and identify the future direction of the co-operation.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN Plus Three was the first of attempts for further integration to improve existing ties of Southeast Asia with East Asian countries of China, Japan and South Korea. This was followed by the even larger East Asia Summit (EAS), which included ASEAN Plus Three as well as India, Australia, and New Zealand. This group acted as a prerequisite for the planned East Asia Community which was supposedly patterned after the European Community (now transformed into the European Union). The ASEAN Eminent Persons Group was created to study this policy's possible successes and failures.


title: ASEAN

text: The group became ASEAN Plus Six with Australia, New Zealand, and India, and stands as the linchpin of Asia Pacific's economic, political, security, socio-cultural architecture, as well as the global economy. Codification of the relations between these countries has seen progress through the development of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free-trade agreement involving the 15 countries of ASEAN Plus Six (excluding India). RCEP would, in part, allow the members to protect local sectors and give more time to comply with the aim for developed country members.


title: ASEAN

text: The economies in this region that have not joined the RCEP are: Hong Kong, India, Macau, North Korea and Taiwan.


title: ASEAN

text: Hong Kong is actively seeking to join. Hong Kong itself has signed free trade agreements with ASEAN, New Zealand, Mainland China, and Australia. Mainland China welcomes Hong Kong's participation. According to the 2018 policy address of the Special Chief Executive, the Special Chief Executive She will start negotiations with RCEP member states after the signing of RCEP.


title: ASEAN

text: As Asia's financial center and Asia's trading hub, Hong Kong can provide member countries with high-quality financial services.


title: ASEAN

text: India temporarily does not join the RCEP for the protection of its own market, but Japan, China, and ASEAN welcomes India's participation. The members stated that "the door will always be open" and promised to create convenient conditions for India to participate in RCEP. And India itself has signed free trade agreements with ASEAN, Japan and South Korea.


title: ASEAN

text: As a free trade port, Macau's tax rate itself is very low. Macau's economy does not depend on import and export trade. Tourism and gaming are the main economic industries in Macau. The Macau government did not state whether to join RCEP. Macau still has room for openness in the service industry.


title: ASEAN

text: Taiwan has been excluded from participating with the organization owing to China's influence on the Asia Pacific through its economic and diplomatic influence. Because Taiwan itself has a New Southbound Policy, the inability to join the RCEP is expected to have little impact on Taiwan. At the same time, Taiwan is also considering whether to cancel ECFA to counter China.


title: ASEAN

text: At the turn of the 21st century, ASEAN began to discuss environmental agreements. These included the signing of the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002 as an attempt to control haze pollution in Southeast Asia, arguably the region's most high-profile environmental issue. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful due to the outbreaks of haze in 2005, 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2015.


title: ASEAN

text: As of 2015, thirteen years after signing the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, the situation with respect to the long term issue of Southeast Asian haze has not been changed for 50% of the ASEAN member states, and still remains as a crisis every two years during summer and fall.


title: ASEAN

text: Trash dumping from foreign countries (such as Japan and Canada) to ASEAN has yet to be discussed and resolved. Important issues include deforestation (with Indonesia recorded the largest loss of forest in the region, more than other member states combined in the 2001-2013 period), plastic waste dumping (5 member states were among the top 10 out of 192 countries based on 2010 data, with Indonesia ranked as second worst polluter), threatened mammal species (Indonesia ranked the worst in the region with 184 species under threat), threatened fish species (Indonesia ranked the worst in the region), threatened (higher) plant species (Malaysia ranked the worst in the region).


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN's aggregate economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. It is expected to grow by 4.6% in 2019, and 4.8% in 2020, but at the cost of the release about 1.5 billion tonnes of CO to the atmosphere every year. That makes ASEAN a greater source of greenhouse gas emissions than Japan (1.3 billion tonnes per year) or Germany (796 million tonnes per year). It is the only region in the world where coal is expected to increase its share of the energy mix. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), "Since 2000 [ASEAN's] overall energy demand has grown by more than 80% and the lion's share of this growth has been met by a doubling in fossil fuel use... Oil is the largest element in the regional energy mix and coal, largely for power generation, has been the fastest growing." ASEAN has been criticized for not doing enough to mitigate climate change although it is the world's most vulnerable region in terms of climate impact.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN has many opportunities for renewable energy. With solar and wind power plus off river pumped hydro storage, ASEAN electricity industry could achieve very high penetration (78%–97%) of domestic solar and wind energy resources at a competitive levelised costs of electricity range from 55 to 115 U.S. dollars per megawatt-hour based on 2020 technology costs. Vietnam's experience in solar and wind power development provides relevant implications for the other ASEAN countries.


title: ASEAN

text: To enhance the region's status in education, ASEAN education ministers have agreed four priorities for education at all levels, promoting ASEAN awareness among ASEAN citizens, particularly youth, strengthening ASEAN identity through education, building ASEAN human resources in the field of education strengthening the ASEAN University Network. At the 11th ASEAN Summit in December 2005, leaders set new direction for regional education collaboration when they welcomed the decision of the ASEAN education ministers to convene meetings on a regular basis. The annual ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting oversees co-operation efforts on education at the ministerial level. With regard to implementation, programs, and activities are carried out by the ASEAN Senior Officials on Education (SOM-ED). SOM-ED also manages co-operation on higher education through the ASEAN University Network (AUN). It is a consortium of Southeast Asian tertiary institutions of which 30 currently belong as participating universities. Founded in November 1995 by 11 universities, the AUN was established to: promote co-operation among ASEAN scholars, academics, and scientists, develop academic and professional human resources, promote information dissemination among the ASEAN academic community, enhance awareness of a regional identity and the sense of "ASEAN-ness" among member states.


title: ASEAN

text: The Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network (SEED-Net) Project was established as an autonomous sub-network of AUN in April 2001. It is aimed at promoting human resource development in engineering. The network consists of 26 member institutions selected by higher education ministries of each ASEAN member state, and 11 supporting Japanese universities selected by the Japanese government. This network is mainly supported by the Japanese government through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and partially supported by the ASEAN Foundation. SEED-Net activities are implemented by the SEED-Net secretariat with the support of the JICA Project for SEED-Net now based at Chulalongkorn University.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN also has a scholarship program offered by Singapore to the 9 other member states for secondary school, junior college, and university education. It covers accommodation, food, medical benefits and accident insurance, school fees, and examination fees. Its recipients, who perform well on the GCE Advanced Level Examination, may apply for ASEAN undergraduate scholarships, which are tailored specifically to undergraduate institutions in Singapore and other ASEAN member countries.


title: ASEAN

text: 'Australia for ASEAN' scholarships are also offered by the Australian Government to the 'next generation of leaders' from ASEAN member states. By undertaking a Master's degree, recipients are to develop the skills and knowledge to drive change, help build links with Australia, and also participate in the Indo-Pacific Emerging Leaders Program to help develop the ASEAN Outlook for the Indo-Pacific. Each ASEAN member state is able to receive ten 'Australia for ASEAN' scholarships.


title: ASEAN

text: The organization hosts cultural activities in an attempt to further integrate the region. These include sports and educational activities as well as writing awards. Examples of these include the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, ASEAN Heritage Parks and the ASEAN Outstanding Scientist and Technologist Award. In addition, the ASEAN region has been recognized as one of the world's most diverse regions ethnically, religiously and linguistically.


title: ASEAN

text: Member states have promoted co-operation in information to help build an ASEAN identity. One of the main bodies in ASEAN co-operation in information is the ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information (COCI). Established in 1978, its mission is to promote effective co-operation in the fields of information, as well as culture, through its various projects and activities. It includes representatives from national institutions like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministries of Culture and Information, national radio and television networks, museums, archives and libraries, among others. Together, they meet once a year to formulate and agree on projects to fulfil their mission. On 14 November 2014, foreign ministers of member states launched the ASEAN Communication Master Plan (ACPM). It provides a framework for communicating the character, structure, and overall vision of ASEAN and the ASEAN community to key audiences within the region and globally. The plan seeks to demonstrate the relevance and benefits of the ASEAN through fact-based and compelling communications, recognising that the ASEAN community is unique and different from other country integration models.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN Media Cooperation (AMC) sets digital television standards and policies in preparation for broadcasters to transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. This collaboration was conceptualised during the 11th ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Information (AMRI) Conference in Malaysia on 1 March 2012 where a consensus declared that both new and traditional media were keys to connecting ASEAN peoples and bridging cultural gaps in the region. Several key initiatives under the AMC include:


title: ASEAN

text: Music plays a significant role in ASEAN affairs, as evidenced by the new music composed for, and to be performed at, the 34th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok in June 2019.


title: ASEAN

text: The main sporting event of ASEAN is the Southeast Asian Games, a biennial meet of athletes from the ten member-states. A non-member state Timor Leste (also known as East Timor) is now participating the SEA Games.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN has been credited by many as among the world's most influential organisations and a global powerhouse. The organisation plays a prominent role in regional and international diplomacy, politics, security, economy and trade. The ASEAN Free Trade Area also stands as one of the largest and most important free trade areas in the world, and together with its network of dialogue partners, drove some of the world's largest multilateral forums and blocs, including APEC, EAS and RCEP. Being one of the world's forefront political, economic and security meetings, the ASEAN Summit serves as a prominent regional (Asia) and international (worldwide) conference, with world leaders attending its related summits and meetings to discuss about various problems and global issues, strengthening cooperation, and making decisions.


title: ASEAN

text: Critics have charged ASEAN with weakly promoting human rights and democracy, particularly in junta-led Myanmar. Some scholars think that non-interference has hindered ASEAN efforts to handle the Myanmar issue, human rights abuse, and haze pollution in the area. Despite global outrage at the military crack-down on unarmed protesters in Yangon, ASEAN has refused to suspend Myanmar as a member and also rejects proposals for economic sanctions. This has caused concern as the European Union has refused to conduct free trade negotiations at a regional level for these political reasons. During a UN vote against the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya, most member states voted to either abstain or against the condemnation. Only the Muslim-majority countries Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei voted to condemn the cleansing of Rohingya. Some international observers view ASEAN as a "talk shop", stating that the organisation is: "big on words, but small on action". "ASEAN policies have proven to be mostly rhetoric, rather than actual implementation", according to Pokpong Lawansiri, a Bangkok-based independent analyst of ASEAN. "It has been noted that less than 50% of ASEAN agreements are actually implemented, while ASEAN holds more than six hundred meetings annually".


title: ASEAN

text: The head of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Tim Huxley, cites the diverse political systems present in the grouping, including many young states, as a barrier to far-reaching co-operation beyond economics. He also asserts that, without an external threat to rally against after the Cold War ended, ASEAN has less successfully restrained its members and resolved such border disputes as those between Myanmar and Thailand or Indonesia and Malaysia. During the 12th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, several activist groups staged anti-globalisation protests, arguing that the agenda of economic integration would negatively affect industries in the Philippines and would deprive thousands of Filipinos of their jobs.


title: ASEAN

text: Corruption remains a widespread issue, as "tea money" remains an important requirement to grease business transactions and to receive public services. Following the release of the "Corruption Perceptions Index 2015" by Berlin-based graft watchdog Transparency International on 27 January, its Asia Pacific director, Srirak Plipat, noted that: "if there was one common challenge to unite the Asia-Pacific region, it would be corruption", noting that: "from campaign pledges to media coverage to civil society forums, corruption dominates the discussion. Yet despite all this talk, there's little sign of action."


title: ASEAN

text: The group's integration plan has raised concerns, in particular, the 2015 deadline. Business and economy experts who attended the Lippo-UPH Dialogue in Naypyidaw cited unresolved issues relating to aviation, agriculture, and human resources. Some panelists, among them, Kishore Mahbubani, warned against high expectations at the onset. He stated: "Please do not expect a big bang event in 2015 where everything is going to happen overnight when the ASEAN Economic Community comes into being. We've made progress in some areas and unfortunately regressed in some areas."


title: ASEAN

text: Some panelists enumerated other matters to be dealt with for a successful launch. Among them were the communications issues involving the 600 million citizens living in the region, increasing understanding in business, current visa arrangements, demand for specific skills, banking connections, and economic differences. Former Philippine National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) Secretary General Romulo A. Virola, said in 2012 that the Philippines seems unready to benefit from the integration due to its "wobbly" economic performance compared to other member states. According to Virola, the Philippines continues to lag behind in terms of employment rate, tourism, life expectancy, and cellular subscriptions. Nestor Tan, head of BDO Unibank Inc., said that while some businesses see the Asian Economic Blueprint (AEC) as an opportunity, the integration would be more of a threat to local firms. Tan added that protecting the Philippines' agricultural and financial services sectors, as well as the labour sector, would be necessary for the implementation of AEC by 2015. Standard & Poor's also believed that banks in the Philippines are not yet prepared for the tougher competition that would result from the integration. In one of its latest publications, S&P said banks in the country, although profitable and stable, operate on a much smaller scale than their counterparts in the region.


title: ASEAN

text: The US Chamber of Commerce has highlighted widespread concern that the much-anticipated AEC could not be launched by the 2015 deadline. In January 2014, former ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo C. Severino, wrote: "while ASEAN should not be condemned for its members' failure to make good on their commitments, any failure to deliver will likely lead to a loss of credibility and could mean that member states fall further behind in the global competition for export markets and foreign direct investment (FDI)". This is not the first time that AEC faces a probable delay. In 2012, the commencement of the AEC was postponed to 31 December 2015 from the original plan of 1 January. Despite Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan's firm reassurance that "[t]here will be no more delays and that all ten ASEAN countries will participate", even the most fervent proponents of AEC worried that AEC would not be delivered on time as December 2015 neared.


title: ASEAN

text: An article published by "Vietnam News" echoed some of the challenges and opportunities that Vietnam faces in preparation for the AEC. The article said that the deputy head of the under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Tran Thanh Hai, was concerned about local enterprises' lack of knowledge of the AEC. It was said that 80% of local enterprises surveyed acknowledged that they have little information about the interests and challenges available for them in the ASEAN market. The article also noted that the general secretary of the Vietnam Steel Association, Chu Duc Khai, said that most of the local steel making enterprises lack information about doing business in the ASEAN market; they have not had a chance to study it, and have only exported small amounts of steel to ASEAN countries. Another challenge is the need to compete with other countries in the ASEAN market to export raw products since the country had mainly exported raw products. The Asian Development Bank also has doubts about Cambodia's ability to meet the AEC deadline. The leading economist of ADB, Jayant Menon, said that Cambodia needs to speed up its customs reform and to press ahead with automating processes to reduce trade costs and minimise the opportunities for corruption and be ready for the implementation of its National Single Window by 2015.


title: ASEAN

text: Despite an ASEAN Economic Community goal of significant economic integration as laid out in the AEC Blueprint 2025, ASEAN continues to face challenges towards integration. A report published by the Asian Trade Centre in 2019 identified multiple sectors that face challenges towards integration due to non-tariff barriers that still exist in the region. The report stated that the goals of the AEC 2025 would not be accomplished if ASEAN fails to address the issues of non-tariff measures and eliminate non-tariff barriers in the region.


title: ASEAN

text: Several territorial disputes have affected the unity of ASEAN such as the Cambodian–Thai border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, Cambodian–Vietnamese border dispute between Cambodia and Vietnam, the North Borneo dispute between the Philippines and Malaysia, and the South China Sea dispute which includes Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, and possibly Indonesia.


title: ASEAN

text: The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978, backed by the Soviet Union, was not accepted by ASEAN. They rejected it as a violation of the principles of regional integration. ASEAN cooperated with US and Australia to oppose Vietnam's move and it sponsored a Cambodian resolution in the United Nations General Assembly. ASEAN played a major role starting in 1980 in the peace process, leading to the 1991 Paris Agreement.


title: ASEAN

text: ASEAN is recognized by its members to be one of the main forums to discuss security issues; based on the principles in its charter, its main aim is to provide an environment of common understanding and cooperation between the member states to "respond effectively to all forms of threats, transitional crimes and transboundary challenges". Accordingly, ASEAN has embraced the idea of cooperative security which means that ASEAN's approach to security issues is through confidence-building measures and transparency for reducing the tension and conflict between its members. Security policies and plans are concerted by the ASEAN Political-Security Community to envision "a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies."


title: ASEAN

text: Piracy in the strait of Malacca and in the Sulu and Celebes Sea is one of the main non-traditional security threats for the region, it has challenged the capacity of its members to ensure coordination of effective policy actions to reduce this phenomenon. As highlighted by the ReCAAP report of 2020: "The increase of incidents (in Asia) during January–June 2020 occurred in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South China Sea and Singapore Strait." The increment of incidents during 2020, have raised alerts in the region as the phenomenon of piracy could be fostered by the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, in their Fourteenth Asean Ministerial Meeting On Transnational Crime the ministers agreed that ASEAN should embrace a greater commitment to strengthen the measures in combating transnational crime in the context of the pandemic. Despite this statement, ASEAN has not updated their plans for combating piracy, although member states created and enforced the Maritime Security Plan of Action 2018-2020, to address the national legal enforcement capacities and creating a common protocol of action to counter piracy allowing the region to cooperate for ensuring the security of the Pacific Ocean, new discussions and agendas for new measures has not been enforced yet.


title: ASEAN

text: Accordingly, this plan reinforces the necessity to secure the seas due to the importance of this region geographical and economically, its strategic position as the main link between the Indian and the Pacific Ocean and the region serving as the main passage that connects middle east economies and India with China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. This plan is mainly focused in three priorities:


title: ASEAN

text: In this sense, spread all over the countries of Southeast Asia, criminal organizations with complex structures pose a challenge to ASEAN's coordination capacity to solve the problem despite the plans created within its institutional framework. Although some measures have been implemented by ASEAN, still the complexity of the problem requires deep solutions of cooperation that might alter the balance of its framework. The maritime security plans for the region are based on the ASEAN idea of political-security community; the two main objectives of the APSC are: "to accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development by promoting an identity of equality and partnership as the main foundations of peace and prosperity". Additionally, the APSC promotes "regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter".


title: ASEAN

text: Nonetheless, the institutional framework and decision-making procedures in ASEAN make difficult to reach agreements on piracy. ASEAN has struggled to deliver a coordinated response to solve this problem in the region mainly by two reasons: the first one, could be related to the focalized nature of the problem in subregions rather than the whole region. Consequently, this focalization generates that the discussions in the main forums (The ASEAN maritime forum (AMF) and Maritime Security Expert Working Group (MSEWG)) have not resulted in actual measures that tackle piracy and involve all member states as major consensus should be reached to enforce them. One example of this, is the possibility discussed by the 10 ASEAN member states to create a joint ASEAN navy in 2015 to carry on operations in one of the piracy hotspots in the region, the strait of Malacca, this proposal ended up being enforced by bilateral/sub-regional efforts rather than in the ASEAN framework (see ReCAAP for further information).  The second one, consensus on non-traditional security issues has been difficult to reach due to contradictory interest between member states, particularly in joint operations between navies and the reach of these joint operations. These issues are generated mainly by unresolved territorial disputes, specially in the maritime domain, at some extent they pose a challenge to ASEAN members in their capacity to cooperate in regards to the maritime security approach.


title: ASEAN

text: Consequently, a greater multilateral cooperation has been pushed by the members to solve the piracy challenges on economy, trading and security. Members of the ASEAN, have addressed the necessity for the regional organization to make some concessions and rearrangements to respond to the challenges that non-traditional security (specifically piracy) issues posse to the security of the ASEAN members. Despite the efforts and plans made by the ASEAN, this organization is expected to overcome the image of being regarded solely as a forum to discuss security issues. Two possible solutions has been proposed by some member states for this purpose: 1. Promoting relationships with other major actors regionally to overcome the short-time challenges and 2. Rearrange the institutional framework to "avoid contention and seek cooperation to maximize the aggregate ability in order to benefit from making the sea fulfil its economic, security and other goals".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Jürgen Norbert Klopp (; born 16 June 1967) is a German professional football manager and former player who is the manager of club Liverpool. He is widely regarded as one of the best managers in the world.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp spent most of his playing career at Mainz 05. He was initially deployed as a striker, but was later moved to defence. Upon retiring in 2001, Klopp became the club's manager, and secured Bundesliga promotion in 2004. After suffering relegation in the 2006–07 season and unable to achieve promotion, Klopp resigned in 2008 as the club's longest-serving manager. He then became manager of Borussia Dortmund, guiding them to the Bundesliga title in 2010–11, before winning Dortmund's first-ever domestic double during a record-breaking season. Klopp also guided Dortmund to a runner-up finish in the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League before leaving in 2015 as their longest-serving manager.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp was appointed manager of Liverpool in 2015. He guided the club to successive UEFA Champions League finals in 2018 and 2019, winning the latter to secure his first – and Liverpool's sixth – title in the competition. Klopp's side finished second in the 2018–19 Premier League, registering 97 points; the then third-highest total in the history of the English top division, and the most by a team without winning the title. The following season, Klopp won the UEFA Super Cup and Liverpool's first FIFA Club World Cup, before delivering Liverpool's first Premier League title, amassing a club record 99 points and breaking a number of top-flight records. These achievements won him back-to-back FIFA Coach of the Year awards in 2019 and 2020.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp is a notable proponent of "Gegenpressing", whereby the team, after losing possession, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup. He has described his sides as playing "heavy metal" football, in reference to their pressing and high attacking output. Klopp has cited his main influences as Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi, and former Mainz coach Wolfgang Frank. The importance of emotion is something Klopp has underlined throughout his managerial career, and he has gained notoriety for his enthusiastic touchline celebrations.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Born in Stuttgart, the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, to Elisabeth and Norbert Klopp, a travelling salesman and a former goalkeeper, Klopp grew up in the countryside in the Black Forest village of Glatten near Freudenstadt with two older sisters. He started playing for local club SV Glatten and later TuS Ergenzingen as a junior player, with the next stint at 1. FC Pforzheim and then at three Frankfurt clubs, Eintracht Frankfurt II, Viktoria Sindlingen and Rot-Weiss Frankfurt during his adolescence. Introduced to football through his father, Klopp was a supporter of VfB Stuttgart in his youth. As a young boy, Klopp aspired to become a doctor, but he did not believe he "was ever smart enough for a medical career", saying "when they were handing out our A-Level certificates, my headmaster said to me, 'I hope it works out with football, otherwise it's not looking too good for you'".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: While playing as an amateur footballer, Klopp worked a number of part-time jobs including working at a local video rental store and loading heavy items onto lorries. In 1988, while attending the Goethe University of Frankfurt, as well as playing for Eintracht Frankfurt non-professionals, Klopp managed the Frankfurt D-Juniors. In the summer of 1990, Klopp was signed by Mainz 05. He spent most of his professional career in Mainz, from 1990 to 2001, with his attitude and commitment making him a fan-favourite. Originally a striker, Klopp began playing as a defender in 1995. That same year, Klopp obtained a diploma in sports science at the Goethe University of Frankfurt (MSc equivalent), writing his thesis about walking. He retired as Mainz 05's record goal scorer, registering 56 goals in total, including 52 league goals.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp confessed that as a player he felt more suited to a managerial role, describing himself saying "I had fourth-division feet and a first-division head". Recalling his trial at Eintracht Frankfurt where he played alongside Andreas Möller, Klopp described how his 19-year-old self thought, "if that's football, I’m playing a completely different game. He was world-class. I was not even class". As a player, Klopp closely followed his manager's methods on the training field as well as making weekly trips to Cologne to study under Erich Rutemöller to obtain his Football Coaching Licence.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Upon his retirement from playing for Mainz 05 in 2. Bundesliga, Klopp was appointed as the club's manager on 27 February 2001 following the dismissal of Eckhard Krautzun. The day after, Klopp took charge of their first match, which saw Mainz 05 secure a 1–0 home win over MSV Duisburg. Klopp went on to win six out of his first seven games in charge, eventually finishing in 14th place, avoiding relegation with one game to spare. In his first full season in charge in 2001–02, Klopp guided Mainz to finish 4th in the league as he implemented his favoured pressing and counter-pressing tactics, narrowly missing promotion. Mainz again finished 4th in 2002–03, denied promotion again on the final day on goal difference. After two seasons of disappointment, Klopp led Mainz to a third-place finish in the 2003–04 season, securing promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time in the club's history.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Despite having the smallest budget and the smallest stadium in the league, Mainz finished 11th in their first top-flight season in 2004–05. Klopp's side finished 11th again in 2005–06 as well as securing qualification for the 2005–06 UEFA Cup, although they were knocked out in the first round by eventual champions Sevilla. At the end of the 2006–07 season, Mainz 05 were relegated, but Klopp chose to remain with the club. However, unable to achieve promotion the next year, Klopp resigned at the end of the 2007–08 season. He finished with a record of 109 wins, 78 draws and 83 losses.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: In May 2008, Klopp was approached to become the new manager of Borussia Dortmund. Despite having interest from German champions Bayern Munich, Klopp eventually signed a two-year contract at the club, which had finished in a disappointing 13th place under previous manager Thomas Doll. Klopp's opening game as manager was on 9 August in a 3–1 DFB-Pokal victory away to Rot-Weiss Essen. In his first season, Klopp won his first trophy with the club after defeating German champions Bayern Munich to claim the 2008 German Supercup. He led the club to a sixth-place finish in his first season in charge. The next season Klopp secured European football as he led Dortmund to a fifth-place finish, despite having one of the youngest squads in the league.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: After losing 2–0 to Bayer Leverkusen on the opening day of the 2010–11 Bundesliga, Klopp's Dortmund side won fourteen of their next fifteen matches to secure the top spot in the league for Christmas. They clinched the 2010–11 Bundesliga title, their seventh league title, with two games to spare on 30 April 2011, beating 1. FC Nürnberg 2–0 at home. Klopp's side were the youngest ever side to win the Bundesliga. Klopp and his team successfully defended their title, winning the 2011–12 Bundesliga. Their total of 81 points that season was the greatest total points in Bundesliga history and the 47 points earned in the second half of the season also set a new record. Their 25 league wins equalled Bayern Munich's record, while their 28-league match unbeaten run was the best ever recorded in a single German top-flight season. Dortmund lost the 2011 DFL-Supercup against rivals Schalke 04. On 12 May 2012, Klopp sealed the club's first ever domestic double, by defeating Bayern Munich 5–2 to win the 2012 DFB-Pokal Final, which he described as being "better than [he] could have imagined".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Dortmund's league form during the 2012–13 season was not as impressive as in the previous campaign, with Klopp insisting that his team would focus on the UEFA Champions League to make up for their disappointing run in that competition in the previous season. Klopp's team were drawn against Manchester City, Real Madrid and Ajax in the competition's group of death. However, they did not lose a game, topping the group with some impressive performances. Dortmund faced José Mourinho's Real Madrid again, this time in the semi-finals. After an excellent result against them at home in the first leg, a 4–1 victory, a 2–0 loss meant Dortmund narrowly progressed to the final. On 23 April 2013, it was announced that Dortmund's crucial playmaker Mario Götze was moving on 1 July to rivals Bayern Munich after they had triggered Götze's release clause of €37 million. Klopp admitted his annoyance at the timing of the announcement of Götze's move, as it was barely 36 hours before Dortmund's Champions League semi-final with Real Madrid. Klopp later said that Dortmund had no chance of convincing Götze to stay with Dortmund, saying, "He is a Pep Guardiola favourite". Dortmund lost the final 2–1 to Bayern, with an 89th-minute goal from Arjen Robben. Dortmund finished in second place in the Bundesliga. They also lost the 2012 DFL-Supercup, and were knocked out of the DFB-Pokal in the round of 16.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: At the beginning of the 2013–14 season, Klopp extended his contract until June 2018. Klopp received a fine of €10,000 on 17 March 2014 after getting sent off from a Bundesliga match against Borussia Mönchengladbach. The ejection was a result of "verbal attack" on the referee, Deniz Aytekin, who stated that Klopp's behaviour was "rude on more than one occasion". Borussia Dortmund Vorstand chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke stated that "I have to support Jürgen Klopp 100 percent in this case" because he saw no reason for a fine and denied that Klopp insulted the fourth official. Dortmund finished the 2013–14 season in second place. On 4 January 2014 it was announced that Klopp's star striker Robert Lewandowski signed a pre-contract agreement to join Bayern Munich at the end of the season, becoming the second key player after Götze to leave the club within a year. Also during the 2013–14 season, Dortmund won the 2013 DFL-Supercup, but were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals by eventual champions Real Madrid.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Dortmund started the 2014–15 season by winning the 2014 DFL-Supercup. After a disappointing beginning of the season, Klopp announced in April that he would leave the club at the end of the season, saying "I really think the decision is the right one. This club deserves to be coached from the 100% right manager" as well as adding "I chose this time to announce it because in the last few years some player decisions were made late and there was no time to react", referring to the departures of Götze and Lewandowski in the seasons prior. He denied speculation that he was tired of the role, saying, "It's not that I'm tired, I've not had contact with another club but don't plan to take a sabbatical". Confronted with the thesis that Dortmund's form immediately improved after the announcement, he joked, "If I'd known, I would have announced it at the beginning of the season". His final match in charge of the team was the 2015 DFB-Pokal Final, which Dortmund lost 3–1 against VfL Wolfsburg. Dortmund finished in the league in seventh place and were knocked out of Champions League in the round of 16 by Juventus. He finished with a record of 178 wins, 69 draws, and 70 losses.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: On 8 October 2015, Klopp agreed a three-year deal to become Liverpool manager, replacing Brendan Rodgers. According to "El País", Liverpool co-owner John W. Henry did not trust public opinion so he looked for a mathematical method very similar to "Moneyball", the approach that Henry used for the Boston Red Sox in guiding them to three World Series wins, which he also owns via Fenway Sports Group. The mathematical model turned out to be that of Cambridge physicist Ian Graham, which was used to select the manager, Klopp, and players essential for Liverpool to win the Champions League. In his first press conference, Klopp described his new side saying "it is not a normal club, it is a special club. I had two very special clubs with Mainz and Dortmund. It is the perfect next step for me to be here and try and help" and stating his intention to deliver trophies within four years. During his first conference, Klopp dubbed himself 'The Normal One' in a parody of José Mourinho's famous 'The Special One' statement in 2004.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp's debut was a 0–0 away draw with Tottenham Hotspur on 17 October. On 28 October, Klopp secured his first win as Liverpool manager against Bournemouth in the League Cup to proceed to the quarter-finals. His first Premier League win came three days later, a 3–1 away victory against Chelsea. After three 1–1 draws in the opening matches of the UEFA Europa League, Liverpool defeated Rubin Kazan 1–0 in Klopp's first win in Europe as a Liverpool manager. On 6 February 2016, he missed a league match to have an appendectomy after suffering suspected appendicitis. On 28 February, Liverpool lost the League Cup Final at Wembley to Manchester City on penalties. On 17 March, Liverpool progressed to the quarter-final of the Europa League by defeating Manchester United 3–1 on aggregate. On 14 April, Liverpool fought back from a 3–1 second half deficit in the second leg of their quarter-final match against his former club Dortmund to win 4–3, advancing to the semi-finals 5–4 on aggregate. On 5 May, Klopp guided Liverpool to their first European final since 2007 by beating Villarreal 3–1 on aggregate in the semi-finals of the Europa League. In the final, Liverpool faced Sevilla, losing 1–3 with Daniel Sturridge scoring the opening goal for Liverpool in the first half. Liverpool finished the 2015–16 season in eighth place.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: On 8 July 2016, Klopp and his coaching staff signed six-year extensions to their deals keeping them at Liverpool until 2022. Liverpool qualified for the Champions League for the first time since 2014–15 on 21 May 2017, after winning 3–0 at home against Middlesbrough and finishing fourth in the 2016–17 Premier League season.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp's side finished fourth in the 2017–18 Premier League, securing qualification for the Champions League for a second consecutive season. Along with the emergence of Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold as regular starters at fullback, Virgil van Dijk and Dejan Lovren built a strong partnership at the heart of Liverpool's defence, with the Dutchman being credited for improving Liverpool's previous defensive issues. Klopp guided Liverpool to their first Champions League final since 2007 in 2018 after a 5–1 aggregate quarter-final win against eventual Premier League champions, Manchester City and a 7–6 aggregate win over Roma in the semi-final. However, Liverpool went on to lose in the final 3–1 to Real Madrid. This was Klopp's sixth defeat in seven major finals. Despite their attacking prowess, Klopp's side had been criticised for their relatively high number of goals conceded, something which Klopp sought to improve by signing defender Virgil van Dijk in the January transfer window, for a reported fee of £75 million, a world record transfer fee for a defender. In the summer transfer window, Klopp made a number of high-profile signings including midfielders Naby Keïta and Fabinho, forward Xherdan Shaqiri and goalkeeper Alisson.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Liverpool started the 2018–19 season with the best league start in the club's history, winning their first six matches. On 2 December 2018, Klopp was charged with misconduct after running onto the pitch during the Merseyside derby to celebrate Divock Origi's 96th minute winning goal with goalkeeper Alisson. Following a 2–0 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Liverpool ended Christmas Day four points clear at the top of the league. A 4–0 win against Newcastle United on Boxing Day saw Klopp's side extend their lead in the league to six points at the half-way point of the season, as well as becoming only the fourth Premier League team to be unbeaten at this stage. It was Klopp's 100th win in 181 matches as Liverpool manager. Klopp's defensive additions proved to be effective as his side equalled the all-time record for the fewest goals conceded at this stage of a top-flight season, conceding just 7 goals and keeping 12 clean sheets in 19 matches. On 29 December, Klopp's side thrashed Arsenal 5–1 at Anfield, extending their unbeaten home run in the league to 31 matches, matching their best such run in the competition. The result saw them move nine points clear at the top of the league, and meant Liverpool won all 8 of their matches in December. Klopp subsequently received the Premier League Manager of the Month award for December. Klopp's side finished the season as runners-up to Manchester City, to whom they suffered their only league defeat of the season. Winning all of their last nine matches, Klopp's Liverpool scored 97 points, the third-highest total in the history of the English top-division and the most points scored by a team without winning the title, and remained unbeaten at home for the second season running. Their thirty league wins matched the club record for wins in a season.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Success eluded Klopp's Liverpool side in domestic cup competitions in 2018–19. On 26 September 2018, Klopp's side were knocked out in the third round of the League Cup after losing 2–1 to Chelsea, their first defeat of the season in all competitions, and were knocked out of the FA Cup after losing 2–1 to Wolves in the third round. Despite a lack of success in domestic cup competitions, Liverpool enjoyed a vintage run in the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League. Klopp's side finished second in their group by virtue of goals scored to qualify for the knockout phase, before drawing German champions Bayern Munich in the round of 16. A scoreless draw in the first leg, followed by 3–1 victory in the second leg at the Allianz Arena saw Liverpool qualify for the quarter-finals. Liverpool won their quarter-final tie against Porto with an aggregate score of 6–1 to advance to the semi-finals, where Klopp's Liverpool faced tournament favourites Barcelona. After suffering a 3–0 defeat at the Nou Camp, Klopp reportedly asked his players to "just try" or "fail in the most beautiful way" in the second leg of the tie at Anfield. In the second leg, Klopp's side overturned the deficit with a 4–0 win, advancing to the final 4–3 on aggregate, despite Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino being absent with injuries, in what was described as one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history. In the final at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool won 2–0 with goals from Salah and Divock Origi, despite only having 39% possession over the course of the game, giving Klopp his first trophy with Liverpool, his first Champions League title, and the club's sixth European Cup/Champions League title overall.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp's side started the 2019–20 season by playing Manchester City in the 2019 FA Community Shield, against whom they lost 5–4 on penalties. Having qualified as winners of the Champions League, Klopp's side played Europa League champions Chelsea in the Super Cup. With the scores level after extra-time, Klopp's side won 5–4 on penalties, giving Klopp his second trophy with the club. It was Liverpool's fourth triumph in the tournament, placing them behind only Barcelona and A.C. Milan with five titles apiece. In the 2019–20 Premier League, Klopp's Liverpool won their first six matches to move five points clear at the top of the table. After the fourth match week, Klopp was named Premier League Manager of the Month for August, his fourth award of the monthly prize. Their 2–1 away victory over Chelsea set a club-record seven successive away league wins and made Liverpool the first Premier League club to win their first six games in successive seasons. On 23 September, Klopp was named as The Best FIFA Men's Coach for 2019, ahead of Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino. At the awards ceremony, Klopp revealed that he had signed up to the Common Goal movement, donating 1% of his salary to a charity which funds organisations around the world using football to tackle social issues. On 11 October, it was announced that Klopp had been named Manager of the Month for September, winning the award for the second consecutive month.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: On 30 November, following a 2–1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion, Klopp saw Liverpool equal an all-time club record of 31 consecutive league matches without defeat, since the club's last defeat to Manchester City on 3 January, dating back to 1988. His side broke the record a week later following a 5–2 win over Everton.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Following a victory against Red Bull Salzburg on 10 December that saw Liverpool top their Champions League group, Klopp signed a contract extension that will keep him at the club until 2024. In December, Klopp won his third Premier League Manager of the month award for November, after winning all four league matches with Liverpool. On 21 December, he led Liverpool to their first FIFA Club World Cup trophy, with victory over Flamengo in the final, making his team the first English side to win the international treble of the Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup. His side ended 2019 with a 1–0 home win against Wolves. The result extended Liverpool's unbeaten home run to 50 matches and gave Klopp's reds a 13-point lead at the top of the table with a game-in-hand. Klopp was subsequently named as the Premier League Manager of the Month for December, winning the award for the fourth time that season. A 1–0 away win against Tottenham Hotspur on 11 January 2020 extended Liverpool's unbeaten run to 38 league games – a club record – totalling 61 points from 21 games, the most ever at that stage of the season by a side in Europe's top five leagues. On 1 February, Klopp's side won 4–0 at home against Southampton to go 22 points clear at the top of the Premier League; the biggest end-of-day lead in English top-flight history, and following second-place Manchester City's defeat to Spurs the next day, the largest gap ever between first and second in top-flight history. Klopp was subsequently named as the Premier League Manager of the Month for January – his fifth of the season so far – breaking the record for the most wins of the award in a single season.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: A 3–2 home victory against West Ham United on 24 February 2020 saw Klopp's side equal the English top-flight records for the most consecutive wins (18) and the most consecutive home wins (21; set by Bill Shankly's 1972 Liverpool side); the latter setting a record for the Premier League era. Klopp said after the game that he "never thought [Manchester City's win record] would be broken or equalled." A 2–1 win against Bournemouth at Anfield on 7 March saw Liverpool set an English top-flight record of 22 consecutive home wins. On 25 June, Klopp's side clinched the title with 7 games left to spare; it was the club's nineteenth league title, its first since 1989–90 and its first during the Premier League era. In the season, Liverpool set a number of English-top flight records including the most consecutive home wins (23), the largest point lead at the end of a matchweek (22), and upon winning the league claimed the unusual achievement of winning the Premier League earlier than any other team by games played (with seven remaining) and later than any other team by date (being the only team to clinch the title in June). Beginning the season prior, Liverpool also enjoyed a 44 match unbeaten run in the league – the second-longest streak in top-flight history – ended by Watford on 29 February. At the end of the season, Klopp was named LMA Manager of the Year as well as Premier League Manager of the Season.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: After winning the opening three league games of the 2020–21 season against Leeds United, Chelsea and Arsenal, on 4 October 2020, Klopp's side lost 7–2 away to Aston Villa. It was the first time Liverpool conceded 7 goals in a league match since 1963. However, following a controversial draw in the first Merseyside derby of the season, in which star defender Virgil van Dijk was injured for the rest of the season, they then bounced back with wins against Sheffield United and West Ham. They went into the international break third in the league and top of their group in the Champions League after a 5–0 win against Atalanta. On 22 November, Klopp led Liverpool to a club record 64th consecutive league match unbeaten at Anfield – surpassing the previous record of 63 games under Bob Paisley between 1978 and 1981 – with a 3–0 win over Leicester City. On 17 December, Klopp was named the Best FIFA Men's Coach for the second successive year having guided the club to their first league title triumph in 30 years. On 20 December, Klopp won the BBC's Sports Coach of the Year. A poor run of form in the early part of 2021 – which coincided with Liverpool being without their three senior central defenders who were out injured for the remainder of the season – saw Liverpool as low as eighth in March. The club then rallied to go undefeated in their last ten league games, with eight wins and two draws, which saw Liverpool finish 3rd in the league. This run of form saw Klopp rely on a new defensive partnership of Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams, both of whom had no prior experience in the Premier League, and included Klopp's first win at Old Trafford, home of arch rivals Manchester United, with Liverpool winning 4–2. The five league wins in May saw Klopp named Premier League Manager of the Month, the ninth time he has received the award.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Having started the 2021–22 season with five wins and three draws from the first eight league fixtures, on 24 October 2021, Liverpool beat Manchester United 5–0 at Old Trafford. This was Klopp's 200th victory in 331 games in charge of Liverpool, making him the fastest manager in the club’s history to reach that milestone. On 1 December, Klopp led Liverpool to a 4–1 away win against Everton in the Premier League as the club became the first team in English top-flight history to score at least two goals in 18 successive games in all competitions. On 7 December, Liverpool won 2–1 away against A.C. Milan at the San Siro and became the first English club to win all six Champions League group games in the competition's history. On 16 December, Klopp became the fastest manager in Liverpool history to record 150 league wins with a 3–1 home win against Newcastle United in what was Liverpool's 2000th top-flight win, the first club in English history to reach this landmark. On 27 February 2022, he led Liverpool to their first domestic final since 2016, the 2022 EFL Cup Final where they defeated Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea 11-10 on penalties after a 0–0 draw that went to extra time. It was a record-breaking 9th victory for Liverpool, and the first time they had won it since 2012. Following Sean Dyche's dismissal by Burnley on 15 April, Klopp became the longest serving manager in the Premier League. On 28 April, Klopp signed a two-year contract extension, extending his stay at Liverpool until 2026. In his announcement to Liverpool supporters he cited his wife Ulla as one of the main reasons for signing the contract. In the 2022 FA Cup Final on 14 May, Liverpool won their first FA Cup since 2006 where they again defeated Chelsea, this time 6–5 on penalties, with Klopp becoming the first German manager to win the trophy. Liverpool would finish second in the Premier League by 1 point before losing 1–0 to Real Madrid in the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: On 30 July 2022, Liverpool opened the 2022–23 season by winning the 2022 FA Community Shield with a 3–1 win over Manchester City, in what was Klopp's first FA Community Shield.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp is a notable proponent of "Gegenpressing", a tactic in which the team, after losing possession of the ball, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup. Klopp has stated that a well-executed counter-pressing system can be more effective than any playmaker when it comes to creating chances. Commenting on his pressing tactics, Klopp said that "The best moment to win the ball is immediately after your team just lost it. The opponent is still looking for orientation where to pass the ball. He will have taken his eyes off the game to make his tackle or interception and he will have expended energy. Both make him vulnerable". The tactic requires great amounts of speed, organisation and stamina, with the idea of regaining possession of the ball as far up the pitch as possible in order to counter possible counter-attacks. It also requires high levels of discipline: The team must be compact to close down spaces for the opponent to thread passes through, and must learn when to stop pressing to avoid exhaustion and protect from long balls passed into the space behind the pressing defence. Despite Klopp's pressing tactics resulting in a high attacking output, his Liverpool side was criticised at times for its inability to control games and keep clean sheets. However, Klopp developed his tactics to incorporate more possession based football and more midfield organisation, as well as overseeing the transfers of Alisson, Virgil Van Dijk, Naby Keïta and Fabinho ahead of the 2018–19 season which saw Liverpool achieve their best league start in the club's history, and equal the all-time record for the fewest goals conceded at the mid-point of a top-flight season, conceding just 7 goals and keeping 12 clean sheets.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: One of Klopp's main influences is Italian coach Arrigo Sacchi, whose ideas about the closing down of space in defence and the use of zones and reference points inspired the basis of Klopp's counter-pressing tactics, as well Wolfgang Frank, his former coach during his time as a player for Mainz from 1995 to 1997 and then 1998–2000. Klopp himself said "I've never met Sacchi, but I learned everything I am as a coach from him and my former coach [Frank], who took it from Sacchi".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: The importance of emotion is something Klopp has underlined throughout his managerial career, saying "Tactical things are so important, you cannot win without tactical things, but the emotion makes the difference". He believes that the players should embrace their emotions, describing how "[football is] the only sport where emotion has this big of an influence". Ahead of the Merseyside derby in 2016, Klopp said "The best football is always about expression of emotion".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: In his first two full seasons at Liverpool, Klopp almost exclusively employed a 4–3–3 formation, utilising a front three of wingers Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané surrounding false-9 Roberto Firmino, supported by Philippe Coutinho in midfield. The foursome earned the moniker of the 'Fab Four' as they supplied the majority of the team's goals over this period of time. Roberto Firmino's exceptionally high number of tackles for a striker under Klopp's management encapsulates his style of play, demanding a high-press from all his players and having his striker defend from the front. Following Coutinho's departure in January 2018, the remaining front three increased their attacking output and continued to create chances as Salah won the Premier League Golden Boot in 2018, before sharing the award with his team-mate, Mané, in 2019. In the early part of the 2018–19 season Klopp, at times, utilised the 4–2–3–1 formation, which he had previously used at Dortmund. While this was partially to account for a number of injuries to key players, it also allowed Klopp to accommodate new signing Xherdan Shaqiri, playing Roberto Firmino in a more creative role and allowing Salah to play in a more central offensive position. However, for the remainder of the season, the 4–3–3 formation, as with the previous two seasons, became Klopp's preferred setup as his side finished as runners-up in the Premier League and reached a second consecutive Champions League final, where Klopp won his first Champions League title as a manager.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp is often credited with pioneering the resurgence of "Gegenpressing" in modern football, and is regarded by fellow professional managers and players as one of the best managers in the world. In 2016, Guardiola suggested that Klopp could be "the best manager in the world at creating teams who attack". Klopp has also received praise for building competitive teams without spending as much as many direct rivals, placing emphasis on sustainability over purely short-term success.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: As well as receiving plaudits for his tactics, Klopp is also highly regarded as a motivator, with Liverpool forward Roberto Firmino saying: "He motivates us in a different way every day", and being praised by Guardiola as a "huge motivator". In 2019, the chief executive of the League Managers Association (LMA) said that Klopp had 'redefined man-management' in the modern era, and highlighted his consistency in European competitions; in Klopp's first three European campaigns with Liverpool he was undefeated over two-legged knockout ties. Klopp was described by Jonathan Wilson of "The Guardian" as "a hugely charismatic figure who inspires players with his personality", while Vincent Hogan of the "Irish Independent" writes, "Not since Bill Shankly have Liverpool had a manager of such charisma".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp has gained notoriety for his enthusiastic touchline celebrations. He received criticism in 2018 for taking things 'too far' when running on to the pitch to embrace Alisson to celebrate an added time winner in the Merseyside Derby. Pep Guardiola spoke in defence of Klopp, saying: "I did it against Southampton. There are a lot of emotions there in those moments".


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: In June 2020, Manchester United's record goalscorer Wayne Rooney responded to Klopp's dismissal of the suggestion that he could emulate Sir Alex Ferguson's success at Manchester United, saying "Klopp says it's impossible for any club to dominate like United once did, but he is wrong. [...] I think if Klopp, who is only 53, stayed at Anfield for the next ten years, Liverpool would win at least five Premier League titles. He could keep building great sides because, as I mentioned, players join clubs to work with managers as good as him."


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp has been married twice. He was previously wedded to Sabine and they have a son, Marc (born 1988), who has played for a number of German clubs including FSV Frankfurt under-19s, KSV Klein-Karben, SV Darmstadt 98, Borussia Dortmund II and the Kreisliga side VfL Kemminghausen 1925. On 5 December 2005, Klopp married social worker and children's writer Ulla Sandrock. They met at a pub during an Oktoberfest celebration that same year. She has a son, Dennis, from a previous marriage. On 10 February 2021, Klopp confirmed that his mother, Elisabeth, had died; he was unable to attend her funeral in Germany due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: He is close friends with fellow manager David Wagner, first meeting each other during their playing days at Mainz and with Wagner being Klopp's best man at his 2005 wedding. Klopp has described their relationship as "In 1991 someone stuck us in a room together and that was the beginning of a life-long friendship!"


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp is a Lutheran who has referred to his faith in public, citing the importance of his beliefs in a media interview. He turned to religion more seriously after the death of his father, who was a Catholic, from liver cancer in 1998.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: In 2005, Klopp was a regular expert commentator on the German television network ZDF, analysing the Germany national team. He worked as a match analyst during the 2006 World Cup, for which he received the Deutscher Fernsehpreis for "Best Sports Show" in October 2006, as well as Euro 2008. Klopp's term came to an end after the latter competition and he was succeeded by Oliver Kahn. During the 2010 World Cup, Klopp worked with RTL alongside Günther Jauch, for which Klopp again won the award for the same category. Klopp has also appeared in the documentary films "Trainer!" (2013) and "Und vorne hilft der liebe Gott" (2016).


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: In an interview for "The Guardian" in April 2018, Klopp expressed his opposition to Brexit claiming that it "makes no sense" and advocated for a second referendum.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic Klopp became a notable proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine, with himself having both vaccines as well as the recommended booster by December 2021. He has compared not getting the vaccine to drink driving, saying: "I don’t take the vaccination only to protect me, I take the vaccination to protect all the people around me. I don’t understand why that is a limitation of freedom because, if it is, then not being allowed to drink and drive is a limitation of freedom as well. I got the vaccination because I was concerned about myself but even more so about everybody around me. If I get [Covid] and I suffer from it: my fault. If I get it and spread it to someone else: my fault and not their fault." Klopp's Liverpool side were notable for being one of the few Premier League sides to be fully vaccinated, with Klopp saying it was an act of solidarity.


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Prior to Liverpool's game on 16 December 2021, with the UK experiencing a new wave of the Omicron variant, Klopp used his Matchday programme notes to recommend Liverpool fans take the vaccine if they hadn't already, as well as telling them to "ignore those who pretend to know. Ignore lies and misinformation. Listen to people who know best. If you do that, you end up wanting the vaccine and the booster."


title: Jürgen Klopp

text: Klopp's popularity is used in advertisements by, among others, Puma, Opel and the German cooperative banking group Volksbanken-Raiffeisenbanken. According to "Horizont", trade magazine for the German advertising industry, and the business weekly "Wirtschaftswoche", Klopp's role as "brand ambassador" for Opel successfully helped the struggling carmaker to increase sales. He is also an ambassador for the German anti-racism campaign ""Respekt! Kein Platz für Rassismus"" ("Respect! No room for racism") and featured in a video for the song "Komm hol die Pille raus" by children's song author Volker Rosin to encourage young football talents. Starting in 2019, Klopp became an ambassador for Erdinger, a German brewery best known for its wheat beers. Klopp featured in an advertising campaign for the beer, telling bartenders to "Never skim an Erdinger." After Liverpool's title win in 2020, the Brewery also produced a special limited edition series of cans featuring Klopp's face and autograph, which sold out quickly online. In 2020, he signed a personal endorsement deal with Adidas, agreeing to become a brand ambassador and wearing their footwear in training sessions and future advertisements. In 2021 he appeared in an ad for Snickers.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." Formed in 1944, started on 27 December 1945, at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, it came into formal existence in 1945 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the international monetary system. It now plays a central role in the management of balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises. Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing balance of payments problems can borrow money. , the fund had XDR 477 billion (about US$667 billion). The IMF is regarded as the global lender of last resort.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Through the fund and other activities such as the gathering of statistics and analysis, surveillance of its members' economies, and the demand for particular policies, the IMF works to influence the economies of its member countries. The organization's objectives stated in the Articles of Agreement are: to promote international monetary co-operation, international trade, high employment, exchange-rate stability, sustainable economic growth, and making resources available to member countries in financial difficulty. IMF funds come from two major sources: quotas and loans. Quotas, which are pooled funds of member nations, generate most IMF funds. The size of a member's quota depends on its economic and financial importance in the world. Nations with greater economic significance have larger quotas. The quotas are increased periodically as a means of boosting the IMF's resources in the form of special drawing rights.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The current managing director (MD) and Chairwoman of the IMF is Bulgarian economist Kristalina Georgieva, who has held the post since October 1, 2019. Indian-American economist Gita Gopinath, who previously served as Chief Economist, was appointed as First Deputy Managing Director, effective January 21, 2022. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas replaced Gopinath as Chief Economist on January 24, 2022.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: According to the IMF itself, it works to foster global growth and economic stability by providing policy advice and financing the members by working with developing countries to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce poverty. The rationale for this is that private international capital markets function imperfectly and many countries have limited access to financial markets. Such market imperfections, together with balance-of-payments financing, provide the justification for official financing, without which many countries could only correct large external payment imbalances through measures with adverse economic consequences. The IMF provides alternate sources of financing such as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF's role was fundamentally altered by the floating exchange rates after 1971. It shifted to examining the economic policies of countries with IMF loan agreements to determine whether a shortage of capital was due to economic fluctuations or economic policy. The IMF also researched what types of government policy would ensure economic recovery. A particular concern of the IMF was to prevent financial crises, such as those in Mexico in 1982, Brazil in 1987, East Asia in 1997–98, and Russia in 1998, from spreading and threatening the entire global financial and currency system. The challenge was to promote and implement a policy that reduced the frequency of crises among emerging market countries, especially the middle-income countries which are vulnerable to massive capital outflows. Rather than maintaining a position of oversight of only exchange rates, their function became one of surveillance of the overall macroeconomic performance of member countries. Their role became a lot more active because the IMF now manages economic policy rather than just exchange rates.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In addition, the IMF negotiates conditions on lending and loans under their policy of conditionality, which was established in the 1950s. Low-income countries can borrow on concessional terms, which means there is a period of time with no interest rates, through the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), the Standby Credit Facility (SCF) and the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF). Non-concessional loans, which include interest rates, are provided mainly through the Stand-By Arrangements (SBA), the Flexible Credit Line (FCL), the Precautionary and Liquidity Line (PLL), and the Extended Fund Facility. The IMF provides emergency assistance via the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) to members facing urgent balance-of-payments needs.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF is mandated to oversee the international monetary and financial system and monitor the economic and financial policies of its member countries. This activity is known as surveillance and facilitates international co-operation. Since the demise of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, surveillance has evolved largely by way of changes in procedures rather than through the adoption of new obligations. The responsibilities changed from those of guardians to those of overseers of members' policies.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The Fund typically analyses the appropriateness of each member country's economic and financial policies for achieving orderly economic growth, and assesses the consequences of these policies for other countries and for the global economy. For instance, The IMF played a significant role in individual countries, such as Armenia and Belarus, in providing financial support to achieve stabilization financing from 2009 to 2019. The maximum sustainable debt level of a polity, which is watched closely by the IMF, was defined in 2011 by IMF economists to be 120%. Indeed, it was at this number that the Greek economy melted down in 2010.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In 1995, the International Monetary Fund began to work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) endorsed the guidelines for the dissemination standards and they were split into two tiers: The General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997, respectively, and subsequent amendments were published in a revised "Guide to the General Data Dissemination System". The system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs).


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and statistical capacity building to evaluate statistical needs, set priorities in improving timeliness, transparency, reliability, and accessibility of financial and economic data. Some countries initially used the GDDS, but later upgraded to SDDS.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: A 2021 study found that the IMF's surveillance activities have "a substantial impact on sovereign debt with much greater impacts in emerging than high-income economies."


title: International Monetary Fund

text: IMF conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in exchange for financial resources. The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform. If the conditions are not met, the funds are withheld. The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 executive board decision and later incorporated into the Articles of Agreement.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment. Stemming primarily from the work of Jacques Polak, the theoretical underpinning of conditionality was the "monetary approach to the balance of payments".


title: International Monetary Fund

text: These loan conditions ensure that the borrowing country will be able to repay the IMF and that the country will not attempt to solve their balance-of-payment problems in a way that would negatively impact the international economy. The incentive problem of moral hazard—when economic agents maximise their own utility to the detriment of others because they do not bear the full consequences of their actions—is mitigated through conditions rather than providing collateral; countries in need of IMF loans do not generally possess internationally valuable collateral anyway.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Conditionality also reassures the IMF that the funds lent to them will be used for the purposes defined by the Articles of Agreement and provides safeguards that country will be able to rectify its macroeconomic and structural imbalances. In the judgment of the IMF, the adoption by the member of certain corrective measures or policies will allow it to repay the IMF, thereby ensuring that the resources will be available to support other members.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: , borrowing countries have had a good track record for repaying credit extended under the IMF's regular lending facilities with full interest over the duration of the loan. This indicates that IMF lending does not impose a burden on creditor countries, as lending countries receive market-rate interest on most of their quota subscription, plus any of their own-currency subscriptions that are loaned out by the IMF, plus all of the reserve assets that they provide the IMF.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement in 1944. During the Great Depression, countries sharply raised barriers to trade in an attempt to improve their failing economies. This led to the devaluation of national currencies and a decline in world trade.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: This breakdown in international monetary cooperation created a need for oversight. The representatives of 45 governments met at the Bretton Woods Conference in the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the United States, to discuss a framework for postwar international economic cooperation and how to rebuild Europe.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: There were two views on the role the IMF should assume as a global economic institution. American delegate Harry Dexter White foresaw an IMF that functioned more like a bank, making sure that borrowing states could repay their debts on time. Most of White's plan was incorporated into the final acts adopted at Bretton Woods. British economist John Maynard Keynes, on the other hand, imagined that the IMF would be a cooperative fund upon which member states could draw to maintain economic activity and employment through periodic crises. This view suggested an IMF that helped governments and to act as the United States government had during the New Deal to the great recession of the 1930s.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF formally came into existence on 27 December 1945, when the first 29 countries ratified its Articles of Agreement. By the end of 1946 the IMF had grown to 39 members. On 1 March 1947, the IMF began its financial operations, and on 8 May France became the first country to borrow from it.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF was one of the key organizations of the international economic system; its design allowed the system to balance the rebuilding of international capitalism with the maximization of national economic sovereignty and human welfare, also known as embedded liberalism. The IMF's influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members. The increase reflected, in particular, the attainment of political independence by many African countries and more recently the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union because most countries in the Soviet sphere of influence did not join the IMF.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The Bretton Woods exchange rate system prevailed until 1971 when the United States government suspended the convertibility of the US$ (and dollar reserves held by other governments) into gold. This is known as the Nixon Shock. The changes to the IMF articles of agreement reflecting these changes were ratified in 1976 by the Jamaica Accords. Later in the 1970s, large commercial banks began lending to states because they were awash in cash deposited by oil exporters. The lending of the so-called money center banks led to the IMF changing its role in the 1980s after a world recession provoked a crisis that brought the IMF back into global financial governance.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF provided two major lending packages in the early 2000s to Argentina (during the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression) and Uruguay (after the 2002 Uruguay banking crisis). However, by the mid-2000s, IMF lending was at its lowest share of world GDP since the 1970s.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In May 2010, the IMF participated, in 3:11 proportion, in the first Greek bailout that totaled €110 billion, to address the great accumulation of public debt, caused by continuing large public sector deficits. As part of the bailout, the Greek government agreed to adopt austerity measures that would reduce the deficit from 11% in 2009 to "well below 3%" in 2014. The bailout did not include debt restructuring measures such as a haircut, to the chagrin of the Swiss, Brazilian, Indian, Russian, and Argentinian Directors of the IMF, with the Greek authorities themselves (at the time, PM George Papandreou and Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou) ruling out a haircut.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: A second bailout package of more than €100 billion was agreed over the course of a few months from October 2011, during which time Papandreou was forced from office. The so-called Troika, of which the IMF is part, are joint managers of this programme, which was approved by the executive directors of the IMF on 15 March 2012 for XDR 23.8 billion and saw private bondholders take a haircut of upwards of 50%. In the interval between May 2010 and February 2012 the private banks of Holland, France and Germany reduced exposure to Greek debt from €122 billion to €66 billion.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: On 25 March 2013, a €10 billion international bailout of Cyprus was agreed by the Troika, at the cost to the Cypriots of its agreement: to close the country's second-largest bank; to impose a one-time bank deposit levy on Bank of Cyprus uninsured deposits. No insured deposit of €100k or less were to be affected under the terms of a novel bail-in scheme.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The topic of sovereign debt restructuring was taken up by the IMF in April 2013, for the first time since 2005, in a report entitled "Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Recent Developments and Implications for the Fund's Legal and Policy Framework". The paper, which was discussed by the board on 20 May, summarised the recent experiences in Greece, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, and Jamaica. An explanatory interview with Deputy Director Hugh Bredenkamp was published a few days later, as was a deconstruction by Matina Stevis of "The Wall Street Journal".


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In the October 2013, Fiscal Monitor publication, the IMF suggested that a capital levy capable of reducing Euro-area government debt ratios to "end-2007 levels" would require a very high tax rate of about 10%.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The Fiscal Affairs department of the IMF, headed at the time by Acting Director Sanjeev Gupta, produced a January 2014 report entitled "Fiscal Policy and Income Inequality" that stated that "Some taxes levied on wealth, especially on immovable property, are also an option for economies seeking more progressive taxation ... Property taxes are equitable and efficient, but underutilized in many economies ... There is considerable scope to exploit this tax more fully, both as a revenue source and as a redistributive instrument."


title: International Monetary Fund

text: At the end of March 2014, the IMF secured an $18 billion bailout fund for the provisional government of Ukraine in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In late 2019, the IMF estimated global growth in 2020 to reach 3.4%, but due to the coronavirus, in November 2020, it expected the global economy to shrink by 4.4%.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In March 2020, Kristalina Georgieva announced that the IMF stood ready to mobilize $1 trillion as its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was in addition to the $50 billion fund it had announced two weeks earlier, of which $5 billion had already been requested by Iran. One day earlier on 11 March, the UK called to pledge £150 million to the IMF catastrophe relief fund. It came to light on 27 March that "more than 80 poor and middle-income countries" had sought a bailout due to the coronavirus.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: On 13 April 2020, the IMF said that it "would provide immediate debt relief to 25 member countries under its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT)" programme.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In November 2020, the Fund warned the economic recovery may be losing momentum as COVID-19 infections rise again and that more economic help would be needed.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Not all member countries of the IMF are sovereign states, and therefore not all "member countries" of the IMF are members of the United Nations. Amidst "member countries" of the IMF that are not member states of the UN are non-sovereign areas with special jurisdictions that are officially under the sovereignty of full UN member states, such as Aruba, Curaçao, Hong Kong, and Macao, as well as Kosovo. The corporate members appoint "ex-officio" voting members, who are listed below. All members of the IMF are also International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) members and vice versa.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Former members are Cuba (which left in 1964), and Taiwan, which was ejected from the IMF in 1980 after losing the support of then United States President Jimmy Carter and was replaced by the People's Republic of China. However, "Taiwan Province of China" is still listed in the official IMF indices.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Apart from Cuba, the other UN states that do not belong to the IMF are Liechtenstein, Monaco and North Korea. However, Andorra became the 190th member on 16 October 2020.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The former Czechoslovakia was expelled in 1954 for "failing to provide required data" and was readmitted in 1990, after the Velvet Revolution. Poland withdrew in 1950—allegedly pressured by the Soviet Union—but returned in 1986.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Any country may apply to be a part of the IMF. Post-IMF formation, in the early postwar period, rules for IMF membership were left relatively loose. Members needed to make periodic membership payments towards their quota, to refrain from currency restrictions unless granted IMF permission, to abide by the Code of Conduct in the IMF Articles of Agreement, and to provide national economic information. However, stricter rules were imposed on governments that applied to the IMF for funding.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The countries that joined the IMF between 1945 and 1971 agreed to keep their exchange rates secured at rates that could be adjusted only to correct a "fundamental disequilibrium" in the balance of payments, and only with the IMF's agreement.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Member countries of the IMF have access to information on the economic policies of all member countries, the opportunity to influence other members' economic policies, technical assistance in banking, fiscal affairs, and exchange matters, financial support in times of payment difficulties, and increased opportunities for trade and investment.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The Board of Governors consists of one governor and one alternate governor for each member country. Each member country appoints its two governors. The Board normally meets once a year and is responsible for electing or appointing an executive director to the executive board. While the Board of Governors is officially responsible for approving quota increases, special drawing right allocations, the admittance of new members, compulsory withdrawal of members, and amendments to the Articles of Agreement and By-Laws, in practice it has delegated most of its powers to the IMF's executive board.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The Board of Governors is advised by the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee. The International Monetary and Financial Committee has 24 members and monitors developments in global liquidity and the transfer of resources to developing countries. The Development Committee has 25 members and advises on critical development issues and on financial resources required to promote economic development in developing countries. They also advise on trade and environmental issues.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: 24 Executive Directors make up the executive board. The executive directors represent all 189 member countries in a geographically based roster. Countries with large economies have their own executive director, but most countries are grouped in constituencies representing four or more countries.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Following the "2008 Amendment on Voice and Participation" which came into effect in March 2011, seven countries each appoint an executive director: the United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia. The remaining 17 Directors represent constituencies consisting of 2 to 23 countries. This Board usually meets several times each week. The Board membership and constituency is scheduled for periodic review every eight years.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF is led by a managing director, who is head of the staff and serves as Chairman of the executive board. The managing director is the most powerful position at the IMF. Historically, the IMF's managing director has been a European citizen and the president of the World Bank has been an American citizen. However, this standard is increasingly being questioned and competition for these two posts may soon open up to include other qualified candidates from any part of the world. In August 2019, the International Monetary Fund has removed the age limit which is 65 or over for its managing director position.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In 2011, the world's largest developing countries, the BRIC states, issued a statement declaring that the tradition of appointing a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF and called for the appointment to be merit-based.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in connection with charges of sexually assaulting a New York hotel room attendant and resigned on 18 May. The charges were later dropped. On 28 June 2011 Christine Lagarde was confirmed as managing director of the IMF for a five-year term starting on 5 July 2011. She was re-elected by consensus for a second five-year term, starting 5 July 2016, being the only candidate nominated for the post of managing director.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The managing director is assisted by a First Deputy managing director (FDMD) who, by convention, has always been a citizen of the United States. Together, the managing director and their First Deputy lead the senior management of the IMF. Like the managing director, the First Deputy traditionally serves a five-year term.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Voting power in the IMF is based on a quota system. Each member has a number of basic votes, equal to 5.502% of the total votes, plus one additional vote for each special drawing right (SDR) of 100,000 of a member country's quota. The SDR is the unit of account of the IMF and represents a potential claim to currency. It is based on a basket of key international currencies. The basic votes generate a slight bias in favour of small countries, but the additional votes determined by SDR outweigh this bias. Changes in the voting shares require approval by a super-majority of 85% of voting power.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: In December 2015, the United States Congress adopted a legislation authorising the 2010 Quota and Governance Reforms. As a result,


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF's quota system was created to raise funds for loans. Each IMF member country is assigned a quota, or contribution, that reflects the country's relative size in the global economy. Each member's quota also determines its relative voting power. Thus, financial contributions from member governments are linked to voting power in the organization.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: This system follows the logic of a shareholder-controlled organization: wealthy countries have more say in the making and revision of rules. Since decision making at the IMF reflects each member's relative economic position in the world, wealthier countries that provide more money to the IMF have more influence than poorer members that contribute less; nonetheless, the IMF focuses on redistribution.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: Quotas are normally reviewed every five years and can be increased when deemed necessary by the Board of Governors. IMF voting shares are relatively inflexible: countries that grow economically have tended to become under-represented as their voting power lags behind. Currently, reforming the representation of developing countries within the IMF has been suggested. These countries' economies represent a large portion of the global economic system but this is not reflected in the IMF's decision-making process through the nature of the quota system. Joseph Stiglitz argues, "There is a need to provide more effective voice and representation for developing countries, which now represent a much larger portion of world economic activity since 1944, when the IMF was created." In 2008, a number of quota reforms were passed including shifting 6% of quota shares to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The IMF's membership is divided along income lines: certain countries provide financial resources while others use these resources. Both developed country "creditors" and developing country "borrowers" are members of the IMF. The developed countries provide the financial resources but rarely enter into IMF loan agreements; they are the creditors. Conversely, the developing countries use the lending services but contribute little to the pool of money available to lend because their quotas are smaller; they are the borrowers. Thus, tension is created around governance issues because these two groups, creditors and borrowers, have fundamentally different interests.


title: International Monetary Fund

text: The criticism is that the system of voting power distribution through a quota system institutionalizes borrower subordination and creditor dominance. The resulting division of the IMF's membership into borrowers and non-borrowers has increased the controversy around conditionality because the borrowers are interested in increasing loan access while creditors want to maintain reassurance that the loans will be repaid.