Richard Hughes breaks silence on Liverpool summer spend

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In the wake of the 2024–25 season, Hughes orchestrated one of Liverpool’s most high-profile recruitment drives in the club’s history.

The club broke their transfer record twice, signing Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen for an initial £100 million (potentially rising to £116 million), followed by a British record £125 million deal for Alexander Isak from Newcastle United.

Alongside these, Liverpool secured Hugo Ekitike for £69 million (potentially rising to £79 million), Jeremie Frimpong for £29.5 million, Milos Kerkez for £40 million, and Giovanni Leoni for £26 million (potentially rising to £29.5 million).

Liverpool’s total gross spend topped £414 million, the highest in the Premier League this summer.

To balance their books, the Reds recouped more than £200 million from player sales.

And speaking IMG x RedBird Summit on Thursday alongside Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan, the sporting director revealed that he had to “detach” himself from the massive fees the Reds splashed out:

“As best you can, you have to detach yourself from what the transfer fee is likely to be,” Hughes said as quoted by the Athletic’s Dan Sheldon at the event.

“First and foremost, the identification of the right player for the right system for the right head coach has a fair amount of importance, and I think this is not something that’s necessarily new for the football club and its ownership.”

“We pay what we believe to be fair market value for a player based on age and based on necessity of that individual to fit into the squad.”

He added that he hopes that fees will be discussed as bargains in the future similar to the discourse that eventually took hold around Alisson and Virgil van Dijk’s transfer fees:

“In the fullness of time, we hope that, instead of talking now about what a huge fee it is, it has been value for money for the football club whenever we’re making that assessment in the future.”

“And because of the ages of the players that we’ve bought, we’re confident that will end up being the case.”

“We also want to try and win now, and that’s important as well, so I’m not describing them as works in progress or anything like that.”

“These are players who have already done a lot in their individual careers?

We talk about Florian and Alex, but Milos, Jeremie and Hugo are players that have achieved a certain level in the game already.”

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