Marcus Rashford’s activism did the impossible – it gave footballers a good name. So too, football manager Jürgen Klopp declined to comment on topics outside of his specialisation and stated, “it’s not important what famous people say”. Celebrity culture, on the whole though, is more rampant than ever. We are still a distance away from the ideal of ideas winning out instead of people, writes Tom Mole.

Amid the constant chatter of celebrity opinions circulating in all available media at all hours of day and night, it was a refreshing moment.  On 5 March 2020, Jurgen Klopp, the famed manager of Liverpool football club, was asked – along with every other celebrity who faced a journalist’s microphone or notebook that week – what he thought about the novel coronavirus that was then sweeping the world, and the government’s plans to ban public gatherings, including football matches.  ‘Look,’ Klopp said in his characteristically accented English, ‘what I don’t like in life is that [on] a very serious thing, a football manager’s opinion is important’.  Perhaps, he suggested, this was a time to listen to the experts.  ‘It’s not important what famous people say’.[1]