Liverpool hunt fifth sporting director since 2022

[Getty Images] It has been almost public knowledge over the last year that Richard Hughes would be leaving for Al-Hilal and the announcement of his departure marks another moment of massive change at Anfield this summer. Liverpool replaced Arne Slot with Andoni Iraola at the end of last season before Michael Edwards, FSG's then CEO of football, resigned in July. Last month FSG confirmed it sold a minority stake in the club to Amit Bhatia's 1892 Holdings - a consortium that includes Jeff Bezos - and now the club are on the hunt for their fifth sporting director since 2022. Edwards left the role of sporting director in 2022 and was replaced by Julian Ward, who is now FSG's technical director. Ward was replaced in 2023 by Jorg Schmadtke before Hughes arrived in 2024. After Jurgen Klopp stepped down, Hughes oversaw the appointment of Slot, who helped Liverpool win their second Premier League title. For that, Hughes deserves credit - even if he was part of the decision to sack Slot. But his legacy will perhaps only be fairly judged in the future, given he oversaw the appointment of Iraola and Liverpool's mega summer window in 2025 where Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak arrived for fees in excess of £100m and the club spent a then record £415m. Hughes made the decision to leave earlier this year, informing the ownership of his desire to seek a fresh challenge. This followed the decision of Edwards to step down in autumn - which was confirmed over the summer - and it was agreed that Hughes would remain in position until the end of the summer window. His existing relationship with Iraola further underlined the logic of keeping him on through the summer. Despite speculation that Hughes was already working for Al-Hilal, Liverpool are satisfied that an agreement for him to only work for Liverpool during this period was honoured. Get the full story on Hughes here