Hughes, 44, spent a decade as Bournemouth’s technical director, before recently resigning from his role and is Michael Edwards’s first appointment since being named Fenway Sports Group’s (FSG) CEO of Football.
Hughes replaces Jorg Schmadtke, who took on the role last May, but only in a short-term basis before leaving after the January transfer window.
Edwards has had a long-standing desire to work with Hughes and they have a professional and personal relationship spanning over 20 years having previously worked together during Hughes’s playing career at Portsmouth, when Edwards was the south coast club’s head analyst under then manager Harry Redknapp.
Hughes arrives at Liverpool with a proven track record of signing young players – he brought the likes of Nathan Ake, Dominic Solanke, Callum Wilson and Aaron Ramsdale to Bournemouth – while he also speaks three languages and has good contacts in both France and Italy, where he grew up.
Intriguingly, Hughes knows the agent of reported Liverpool managerial target Xabi Alonso having brought another of his clients, Andoni Iraola, to the Vitality last summer, while he was also reportedly keen for Roberto De Zerbi – another man understood to be on the shortlist to replace Jurgen Klopp – to manage Bournemouth.
It is understood when Julian Ward left his role as Liverpool’s sporting director last summer, Edwards was surprised Hughes was not one of the candidates to be interviewed by club owners FSG.
“I am incredibly proud to be offered this opportunity. Liverpool FC is a unique club and I’m grateful to be given a chance to serve it in this capacity,” Hughes told the club’s website.
“People rightly talk about the rich history this organisation can boast, but it is the present and future which really excites me.
“It will be my job, working with Michael and leading the football operations team already in place, plus the wider staff at the AXA Training Centre, to make good decisions.
“That’s really what the job entails: you have to make the kind of good decisions which enhance the prospects of having a team that wins and excites the supporters.
“It is what Liverpool have done well for a very long time and the benefits are there for everyone to see.”
One of Hughes’s first jobs will be to find a successor to Klopp, who announced in January he will be leaving the club at the end of the season.
