Jürgen Klopp's successor at Red Bull will be a prominent former Bundesliga coach

Red Bull officially announced on Friday that Roger Schmidt will take over from Klopp. He is due to start work on 1 October and has signed a long-term contract.

"We are very pleased to welcome Roger Schmidt back to Red Bull. With his many years of experience, his outstanding football expertise and his clear understanding of our philosophy, he is the right person to be responsible for the sporting direction of our global football portfolio," CEO Oliver Mintzlaff stressed. Schmidt has built up "an outstanding reputation for developing young talents and successfully promoting them at the highest level".

For Schmidt, it is a return to familiar ground in the Red Bull cosmos. Between 2012 and 2014, the 59-year-old coached RB Salzburg, won the Austrian league and cup double there in his second season and earned himself a move to the German Bundesliga. In the summer of 2014, Schmidt joined Bayer Leverkusen and also made a name for himself in a top league with his intense football. He later coached two other renowned clubs, PSV Eindhoven (2020 to 2022) and Benfica Lisbon (2022 to 2024). Most recently, Schmidt had been working as Global Sports Director in Japan's J.League since October 2025, where he had actually still been under contract until 2027.

Roger Schmidt succeeds the new Germany head coach Jürgen Klopp at Red Bull

That role became vacant recently after Klopp took over from Julian Nagelsmann, who resigned as Germany head coach after the disappointing World Cup. Contrary to the original expectation, the DFB did not have to pay compensation to Red Bull for this, even though Klopp had actually still been under contract there until the end of 2029. At the start of 2025, the former Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool manager took up his role as Head of Global Soccer, which Schmidt is now set to fill. Klopp's contract as Germany head coach now runs until after the 2030 World Cup.

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"I am very much looking forward to this new challenge and am proud to once again be part of the Red Bull family in future," said Schmidt, who initially coached Preußen Münster and SC Paderborn in the early years of his coaching career. "Red Bull's international club portfolio is unique, ambitious and shaped by a clear philosophy of developing young talents while also being successful at the highest level. It is precisely this combination that makes this role particularly appealing to me," Schmidt said.

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