“I'm Xabi Alonso, I'll be in charge of Liverpool next season, but I'm running out of money for my flights to Liverpool,” said the message, written in Thai. The former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder is among the favorites to succeed Klopp, who surprisingly announced on Friday that he would leave the club at the end of the season.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has asked fans to be wary of a message that went viral posted on an Instagram account by a person posing as the Spaniard and asking for donations of 300 baht (around 8 euros) to help him to pay for his plane ticket.
“Liverpool fans need to calm down. "Xabi is not yet the manager, but there is already a scammer online," reads the police statement published on Facebook on Sunday. Police said the author of the post - doctored to appear to come from Alonso's official Instagram account - was "a scammer pretending to be Xabi".
The English Premier League is extremely popular in Thailand and Liverpool is one of the Thais' favorite teams. You can find red jerseys and club crests almost everywhere, on clothes, in taxis or stores.