Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has announced he is going to become a grandfather as his step-son Dennis is expecting his first child.
Klopp and his second wife Ulla Sandrock have no children together, but both have sons from their respective first marriages.
The 55-year-old became Dennis’ stepfather after marrying Ulla back in 2005. He had been married to Sabine Klopp for 12 years until they divorced in 2001.
Klopp revealed the news during an interview on Polish television with his former Borussia Dortmund player Lukasz Piszczek.
‘I’m going to be a grandpa,’ Klopp told Piszczek on Viaplay Sport Polska during the interview at Liverpool’s training centre.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has revealed his is set to become a grandfather
Klopp and his wife Ulla Sandrock both have sons from their respective first marriages
Ulla’s son Dennis, left, will reportedly become a father for the first time at the age of 35
Klopp also has a son from his first marriage called Marc, who used to play for Borussia Dortmund before having to retire in 2015 due to a series of injuries.
German newspaper Bild reported that both Dennis and Marc get on well together.
German-born Ulla is a former social worker and novelist who met Klopp at Munich’s Oktoberfest in 2005, where she was working as a waitress.
She is known as The First Lady of Bundesliga in her home country due to her charity work in both Germany and Kenya.
Ulla worked as a teacher and hospital worker in Nairobi for three years, before settling in Mainz, western Germany, where Jurgen was living too, working as the manager of the city’s football club, Mainz 05.
She endeared herself to locals in Liverpool after handing out £1,000-worth of £50 food vouchers to staff at their nearby Waitrose as a ‘thank-you’ for working through the pandemic back in 2020.
Klopp has previously said Ulla was crucial in convincing him to extend his Liverpool contract having initially planned to leave the club when his contract expired in 2024.
The 55-year-old ultimately signed a contract extension until the end of the 2026 season.
Klopp claimed Ulla had been key to convincing him to extend his Liverpool contract last year
‘The most important contract in my life I signed is the one with Ulla,’ Klopp said last year.
‘That’s where it started again. We sat in the kitchen at the table and Ulla said, ‘I can’t see us leaving in 2024.’
‘What is very important and is probably the most important – because I could not work against that and wouldn’t want to work against it – is that my family, in this case especially Ulla, she just loves it here.
‘If she would say, ‘Honestly, I love the football and I love watching it but I actually want to go home’, then we would go, that’s the truth. She started it and here we are.’
