From the outside looking in, Matt Newberry is a low-key figure. A Google search returns little information other than a job title, and he does not have a profile on Liverpool’s official website.
Yet despite the unassuming digital footprint, Newberry and his team have an incredibly important role in moulding the club’s future.
Newberry’s role since 2024 has been ‘director of global talent’, where he leads a youth recruitment drive that has seen the arrival of what Liverpool believe are some of the best youngsters in the game.
In 2026 alone, the Reds have signed Mor Talla Ndiaye from Senegalese club Amitie FC, Ifeanyi Ndukwe from Austria Vienna, Samuel Martinez from Atletico Nacional in Colombia, Lucca Brughmans from Genk and Djylian N’Guessan from Saint-Etienne.
Hungarian Armin Pecsi, who has one cap and is represented by the same agency as Liverpool vice-captain Dominik Szoboszlai, was also signed in a similar move which club staffers describe as an aggressive desire to recruit the very best emerging young talent.
Internally, the club believe Brughmans is the best young goalkeeper in the world. They feel the same about Ndukwe at centre half – and his talents were already evident in pre-season before he went on loan to La Liga side Levante.
Defender Mor Talla Ndiaye (centre) is one of a host of talented youngsters Liverpool have signed in 2026 alone
Despite his unassuming digital footprint, Matt Newberry and his team have an incredibly important role in moulding the future of Liverpool
Not all of the above names will make it in Liverpool’s first team. But Liverpool believe that if even just a couple do, Newberry’s team have succeeded. Others can be sold on and the club can benefit in alternative ways.
The process of Newberry and his team goes well beyond just scouting young players.
Insiders point to the fact all of these kids will have been known by every top club in the game. One of the global talent team’s key responsibilities is nurturing relationships with clubs around the world and selling Liverpool to players.
Newberry, for example, recently travelled to Colombia to work with Martinez, who will join Liverpool’s academy from next season – or when he turns 18, due to Brexit rules prohibiting British clubs signing foreign talent before they are an adult.
Young keeper Brughmans had been taken to Real Madrid and was expected to follow in the footsteps of his idol Thibaut Courtois, until Newberry and Co intervened and sold him the pathway at Liverpool.
The club moved quickly and made their offer to Genk on the Sunday morning before transfer deadline day. By Monday morning, he was on a jet to Merseyside.
So who is Newberry himself, the man at the helm of this operation?
Born in County Down, Northern Ireland, Newberry’s first role in football was at Birmingham City as an academy scout and he was soon a recruitment officer for young talent. He joined Liverpool just under 15 years ago and has held multiple roles in youth scouting and recruitment.
When working as a scout, Newberry is credited with being the man who first watched Ryan Gravenberch playing for Ajax Under 16s as a 13-year-old. Liverpool signed him several years later and Gravenberch was named Premier League Young Player of the Year when Liverpool won the title in 2024-25.
Young goalkeeper Lucca Brughmans was expected to move to Real Madrid but Liverpool got their man
Anfield insiders regard Ifeanyi Ndukwe (left), on loan at Levante, as one of the best young defenders in world football
Newberry was influential in bringing fellow Northern Irishman Conor Bradley to the club, too. His local team Dungannon Swifts welcomed two Liverpool staffers, who checked out their facilities. Bradley remained attached to the club and would fly back and forth to Merseyside to train. Coaches at Dungannon are still looked after and flown over to Liverpool games.
James McConnell, who played for Liverpool’s first team last week, had a similar story. The Newcastle fan was signed from Sunderland at 14 and placed in a school just down the road from some family friends who housed him.
Newberry also spent a year working as pathways manager, essentially sorting out loans for youngsters – making sure the new club is the right one, their playing style fits and that the player’s personal needs and development are looked after.
Liverpool were one of the first adopters of this role and Julian Ward, who is to take over from Richard Hughes as sporting director, previously occupied the position. Ward’s successor was David Woodfine, now assistant sporting director and a key cog in the operation.
One of the reasons the club has turned to foreign talent is Brexit and rules that prohibit British clubs signing Europeans before the age of 18. This might sound like a contradiction, but British talent now costs a premium.
Academy director Alex Inglethorpe said earlier this year: ‘The market is more competitive now around the age of 16 than it’s ever been. There’s no question that since Brexit, the landscape has changed and it’s driven up the price of young English talent.’
There is something of an arms race developing in the youth game. Teenagers (and sometimes pre-teens) are being offered flash cars, big houses, promises of first-team debuts within certain time frames, eye-watering bonuses to get around salary caps, and all sorts.
Liverpool poached Rio Ngumoha from Chelsea two years ago and the Blues tried to retaliate by targeting several youngsters in Liverpool’s academy. Ngumoha could have earned more at Stamford Bridge but was instead sold on the pathway at Anfield.
He is now a fully-fledged member of the first team and in line for a bumper new contract soon. Last term, he was paid a nominal salary – for a footballer, anyway! – but remunerated with healthy bonuses and performance-related add-ons.
Rio Ngumoha, 18, is already a fully-fledged member of the first team and in line for a bumper new contract soon
Rival clubs were willing to pay 16-year-old winger Joshua Abe nearly £50,000 a week to sign for them
Some clubs were willing to pay 16-year-old winger Joshua Abe nearly £50,000 a week to sign for them, with Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid all keen. It shows the success of Liverpool’s youth policy is about more than finances.
Several academy stars have already played for the first team this season, with boss Andoni Iraola in regular contact with youth staffers. Captain Virgil van Dijk is also a regular at youth games and not just because his young son Jacey has trained at the club.
Newberry’s team is not designed to cut across any domestic scouting operations or loan pathways. They work closely with the other departments and Gary Probert, brought in from Ipswich as loan manager, has won many fans inside the club.
Everyone is keen to stress that all recruitment at Liverpool is a team game and no individual should take all the credit. Recently departed head of academy recruitment Chris Dowling, who was influential in bringing Ngumoha to the club, was also a key player.
Think of Newberry’s team then, as an extension of the sporting director with a particular focus on the emerging talents in the game. Remember, the club have recently invested £20million in the redevelopment of the academy and its facilities, with a full-size indoor pitch under a dome.
Part of their remit has also been to extend Liverpool’s tentacles into less traditional markets. Before the signing of Martinez, for example, the Reds had not previously done much shopping for South American youngsters. Before Ndiaye, the African market was largely untapped.
The president of Gambian side BST Galaxy was invited to the AXA Training Centre to meet club staff and two players were given trials at Liverpool. Again, this drive is as much about nurturing relationships as it is finding the players in the first place.
The Reds employ many regional scouts, such as Dassler Marques and Gonzalo Siegrist in South America. In February, they recruited former Mechelen left back Laurens Paulussen to focus on Belgium and the Netherlands.
Jasper Vallmark has covered Scandinavia for a year, Tika Musonda moved from Spurs to be a global talent scout. These are just some examples of their global operation, but they still have plenty of domestic employees – such as former winger Stewart Downing.
That is why they are keen to spread their wings, but the arrivals of current first-teamers Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni from fellow English clubs show the global drive is not coming at the expense of domestic recruitment.
Liverpool still have plenty of employees scouting the domestic market – such as former winger Stewart Downing
Another player Liverpool have watched is striker Michael Mulholland from Northern Irish side Crusaders. The Belfast-born forward supposedly once scored 256 in a single season. He already has several caps for the Northern Ireland youth team and an adidas deal.
In two other moves first revealed in Confidential, Liverpool also signed Zach Trinder from Wolves, rated as one of the best young goalkeepers in the country, and defender Dara Jikiemi from Celtic.
Any of those could be the next cab off the rank for Liverpool, whose reach stretches further than ever before. Newberry and Co are just as crucial to shaping the future as anyone at Anfield – and they are confident some of their recruits will strike gold.
