{"id":783122,"date":"2026-09-26T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783122\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:30:11","slug":"liverpool-rehire-julian-ward-as-sporting-director-to-replace-richard-hughes-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783122\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool rehire Julian Ward as sporting director to replace Richard Hughes | Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool have appointed Julian Ward as their sporting director for a second time following the departure of Richard Hughes<\/a> to Al-Hilal.<\/p>\n

Ward, who was Liverpool\u2019s sporting director for one season in 2022-23, has returned to the role after spending the past two years as technical director for Fenway Sports Group<\/a>, the club\u2019s owners.<\/p>\n

The swift process of finding a successor to Hughes, who left for the Saudi Pro League after two and a half years at Anfield when the summer transfer window ended, was led by the FSG president, Mike Gordon.<\/p>\n

Ward has worked in various capacities for Liverpool<\/a> over the past 14 years, including European scouting manager, assistant sporting director and sporting director.<\/p>\n

His appointment offers continuity at a time of upheaval in the Liverpool hierarchy with Hughes and Michael Edwards, the former chief executive of football at FSG, exiting this year and the owners in the process of selling a 38% stake in the club to 1892 Holdings<\/a> for \u00a32bn. The consortium, fronted by Amit Bhatia and including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has an option for a full takeover should FSG decide to sell up.<\/p>\n

J\u00fcrgen Klopp signs a contract extension in April 2022 with FSG\u2019s Michael Gordon (left) and Julian Ward, then Liverpool\u2019s assistant sporting director. Photograph: Andrew Powell\/Liverpool FC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old Ward replaced Edwards as sporting director in 2022 but told FSG he wished to step away for personal reasons only months into the role. Luis D\u00edaz, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister and Darwin N\u00fa\u00f1ez were signed during Ward\u2019s first spell although the then manager J\u00fcrgen Klopp had a greater say on transfers after Edwards left.<\/p>\n

Ward remained highly regarded by FSG, however, and Gordon, who had resumed the day-to-day running of Liverpool after Hughes\u2019s departure, considers his extensive knowledge of the club and of squad planning as invaluable. As FSG\u2019s technical director, Ward had oversight of the global talent strategy that has seen Liverpool sign several highly rated young prospects this year.<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s new sporting director will lead the club\u2019s football operation alongside the assistant sporting director David Woodfine, chief scout Barry Hunter, FSG\u2019s director of football development Pedro Marques and Andoni Iraola\u2019s senior leadership team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool have appointed Julian Ward as their sporting director for a second time following the departure of Richard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}