Richard Hughes quits Liverpool for Al-Hilal as Anfield’s summer of upheaval deepens

Liverpool’s turbulent summer has claimed another senior figure, with sporting director Richard Hughes stepping down from his post and heading for Saudi Arabia.

The 47-year-old arrived on Merseyside barely two years ago from Bournemouth. His agreement had been due to run until the summer of 2027, so his early departure was widely anticipated long before Saturday’s confirmation. Al-Hilal, the Riyadh giants, are his next destination.

In a farewell message issued through the club, Hughes spoke warmly of his affection for Liverpool and offered his best wishes to everyone at Anfield for the campaign ahead and beyond.

A short reign packed with incident

Hughes walked into one of the toughest briefs in English football. He succeeded the post-Jurgen Klopp transition, helping to identify Arne Slot as the German’s heir — a call that looked inspired when the Dutchman delivered the club’s 20th league crown in his debut year in charge.

Recruitment under his watch was nothing if not ambitious. Last year’s business brought Florian Wirtz to Merseyside for £116m and shattered the British transfer record to land Alexander Isak at £125m, part of a record £415m outlay in 2025. This summer’s outlay approached £200m further, headlined by Bradley Barcola’s arrival from Paris St-Germain.

Yet football judges harshly on the most recent evidence. Slot could not reproduce his opening-season magic, the Reds trailed home fifth, and the board opted for change. Andoni Iraola — a man Hughes knows intimately from their shared time on the south coast — now occupies the dugout.

Tribute from the ownership

Mike Gordon, president of owners Fenway Sports Group, paid tribute to the departing executive, saying the club respected his personal decision and wishing him and his family every success in whatever comes next.

The words carried genuine warmth, but they cannot disguise the scale of churn behind the scenes. Hughes’s exit follows Michael Edwards’s resignation as FSG’s football chief executive in July, with Julian Ward now operating as the group’s technical director. Liverpool are effectively searching for a fifth sporting director in four years, following Edwards’s departure in 2022, Ward’s brief tenure and Jorg Schmadtke’s single-season spell before Hughes took over.

Off the pitch, the restructuring continues apace: FSG last month confirmed the sale of a minority holding to a consortium led by Amit Bhatia’s 1892 vehicle.

Why Al-Hilal, and why now?

Few in the industry will be surprised by the destination. Word that Hughes was bound for Riyadh has circulated for the better part of a year, and the Saudi champions have been stockpiling Premier League talent with abandon.

Simone Inzaghi’s side laid out close to £180m on English-based players this summer alone: Gabriel Martinelli arrived from Arsenal in a £60m move, Ollie Watkins swapped Aston Villa for the Gulf for £51m, and Cyrenscio Summerville completed a £60m switch from West Ham. A recruitment specialist of Hughes’s profile fits precisely the ambitious programme the 21-time domestic champions are assembling.

Liverpool, for their part, insist there is no cause for suspicion about divided loyalties. Although rumours suggested Hughes had already begun work for his future employers, the club maintain he served only their interests throughout, honouring an agreement to stay on until the window shut. His rapport with Iraola, newly installed as head coach, made retaining him through the summer a matter of simple logic — continuity at the very moment everything else was shifting.

Verdict still to come

History may yet be kind to Hughes. He appointed a title-winning manager, sanctioned two of the most eye-catching signings the English game has seen, and hand-picked Iraola to lead the rebuild. The decision to dismiss Slot, in which he played a part, remains contested.

As detailed in BBC Sport’s account of the Anfield departure, the Scot informed the hierarchy earlier this year of his wish for a new challenge, staying on purely to steer the club through a chaotic window. Whether Iraola’s reign flourishes — and whether the nine-figure punts on Wirtz and Isak mature into cornerstones — will ultimately define how these two whirlwind years are remembered.