New Liverpool sporting director Ward: From Northern Ireland to Portugal to Spain | OneFootball

Julian Ward takes the sporting director's job at Liverpool with a Northern Ireland playing background.

Ward will leave his role of assistant sporting director for the promotion after Michael Edwards announced his planned departure at the end of the season.

Well-known and liked in transfer circles having operated across Europe and South America, the 40-year-old was also a popular player when his career continued in Northern Ireland while he attended the University of Ulster at Jordanstown in 2005, reports the Sunday World.

“I had been playing at Morecombe, but before I came to Northern Ireland I was on the semi-pro scene with the likes of Southport and Hyde United," he recalled.

“I was 24 when I decided to do a PhD at Jordanstown, so I moved over to come to the University of Ulster. The course began in September 2005 and by chance, I knew Conor Lynch from the University, who was at Larne at the time.

“Some of my best experiences in football have come from playing in the Irish League."

Having studied Sports Science at John Moores University, he became a performance analyst for the Football Association in 2001 before joining the industry-changing ProZone a year later.

A fluent Portuguese speaker, he lived in Lisbon where he headed up analysis and technical scouting for Portugal's Football Federation.

Manchester City poached him to be their South American scouting strategist; mining their key region of talent identification between 2010 and 2012.

Liverpool then swooped, putting Ward in charge of scouting in Spain and Portugal. In 2015, he become head of loan pathways and football partnerships where he earned the respect of the likes of Rangers manager Steven Gerard — set for Aston Villa — whom he had to regularly liaise with.