Liverpool appoint Julian Ward as sporting director
Liverpool appoint Julian Ward as sporting director
Dominic KingSat, September 26, 2026 at 8:02 AM UTC
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Julian Ward has been named Liverpool sporting director after Richard Hughes left to join Al-Hilal
Julian Ward has been confirmed as Liverpool’s new sporting director in what is a reappointment to the role he previously held in the 2022-23 season.
Liverpool announced on September 5 that Richard Hughes had stepped down from the position with immediate effect to take on a similar role with Al-Hilal. Hughes had been persistently linked with a move to Saudi Arabia since January but stayed to oversee business in the last window.
Mike Gordon, the president of owners Fenway Sports Group and man responsible for overseeing the day-to-day running of Liverpool, led the process of finding Hughes’s successor and though they considered some outside names, it was decided that an internal move for Ward was a better fit.
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Choosing Ward reflects his previous work at the club, as he has been a key figure behind the scenes he was first hired by Liverpool from Manchester City in 2012, initially being their scout in Iberia before taking roles such as loans manager and, then, assistant sporting director to Michael Edwards in 2020.
Ward’s reputation with the most powerful agents is strong and it was he who was crucial in reestablishing a link with Jorge Mendes’s Gestifute agency in 2018 and his role in the signing of Fabinho from Monaco was instrumental.
Mendes had gone seven years without doing business with Liverpool, since the deal that took Raul Meireles out of Anfield to Chelsea, but Ward, who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and worked for the Portuguese FA, reestablished significant links.
Source: “AOL Sports”
