Edwards offers Liverpool stability on return ahead of turbulent summer
There is change afoot at Fenway Sports Group and seismic upheaval on its way to Liverpool and yet, paradoxically, the club’s owner has ensured there will be a degree of stability and continuity on offer to Jürgen Klopp’s successor this summer with the rehiring of Michael Edwards. FSG’s persistent and ultimately convincing sales pitch to the club’s former sporting director underlines the belief in Boston there was only one candidate who could minimise disruption while expanding the company’s horizons.
Edwards returns as FSG’s chief executive officer of football – note, not Liverpool’s CEO of football – two years after stepping down as sporting director following a decade of outstanding service at Anfield. The 44year-old’s success rate in the previous role presents an obvious case for his re-employment. There was the appointment of Klopp for a start, who sparked not only the club’s transformation but the revision of Edwards’s and FSG’s own reputations among a previously sceptical Liverpool support.
There were the signings that turned Liverpool into champions after a 30year wait – Mohamed Salah, who Edwards consistently pushed for when Klopp wanted Julian Brandt, Roberto Firmino, Andy Robertson – and the sales that funded FSG’s vision for selfsustained success. The headline figure remains Philippe Coutinho, bought for £8.5m and sold for a now scarcely believable £142m, enabling Liverpool to add the finishing touches in Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, but impressive proceeds for fringe players such as Jordon Ibe, Dominic Solanke and Danny Ward also enhanced Edwards’ standing.
The recruitment team who worked closely with Edwards as sporting director remains in situ at the top level. Dave Fallows is still head of recruitment and Barry Hunter remains chief scout. Just don’t call them a “transfer committee”. That label has been expunged from the Anfield lexicon.
The structures and processes that Edwards put in place – including the data-driven analysis of recruitment and player trading, and the setup of a flourishing academy – remain untouched. Julian Ward, Edwards’ protege and short-lived successor, sought continuation rather than change while Liverpool’s
most recent sporting director, Jörg Schmadtke, was only ever a shortterm appointment. The approach that allowed Klopp’s genius to thrive will welcome his replacement as Liverpool manager. The disruption the club faces this summer, when assistant managers Pepijn Lijnders and Peter Krawietz plus the elite development coach, Vitor Matos, will also follow Klopp out the door, has been contained by Edwards’ appointment. But, of course, it was the promise of change that lured Liverpool’s former sporting director back.
Edwards rejected the offer of his old job when FSG first made contact following the public announcement of Klopp’s decision to leave in January. He had, during his two years away from the frontline of Premier League football, also turned down approaches from Manchester United and Chelsea to head their entire football operations. FSG needed to offer something different. During talks in Boston at the beginning of the month, the FSG president, Mike Gordon, enticed Edwards back by handing over his own duties for the day-today running of Liverpool on all football matters along with responsibility for identifying and leading a second club as the company looks to expand. As Edwards admitted on Tuesday: “One of the biggest factors in my decision is the commitment to acquire and oversee an additional club, growing this area of their organisation. I believe that to remain competitive, investment and expansion of the current football portfolio is necessary.”
FSG is restructuring at the top as well as seeking to add a second football club to an increasing sports portfolio. In February, and in a move with parallels to Edwards’ appointment, FSG rehired the former Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein as a member of its ownership group and senior adviser to the company. Epstein helped the Red Sox end their wait for a first World Series since 1918, ultimately winning it twice, before repeating the story with the Chicago Cubs in 2016. The moves for Edwards and Epstein reflect FSG’s desire to rehire trusted executives and willingness to offer wider-ranging roles to get them back.
As FSG’s CEO of football Edwards will report to the company’s board and shape a new executive team for Liverpool, starting with the appointment of the sporting director who will help recruit Klopp’s successor. That is widely expected to be Richard Hughes, who has known Edwards since their paths crossed at Portsmouth more than 20 years ago and whose departure as Bournemouth’s technical director was announced last week. Hughes was the man behind Andoni Iraola’s arrival as Bournemouth head coach last summer. Iraola’s agent, Iñaki Ibáñez, also represents Xabi Alonso, the frontrunner for the Liverpool manager’s job.
Edwards’s return enables Gordon to step back into a more traditional role at ownership level. It was a move he was hoping to make last year but the search for a permanent sporting director at Liverpool, which commenced with Ward’s surprise decision to leave in 2022, coupled with the Klopp bombshell stalled those plans. The FSG president would hand over his responsibilities at Liverpool “only if we could find the right individual or structure.”
In Edwards, Gordon has found a solution he never wanted to lose in the first place.