David Lawrie will join the Aberdeen FC board as a non-executive director.

An Aberdonian and lifelong Dons’ fan, Lawrie has recently retired after five years as chief operating officer of the Right to Dream Academy, founded in Ghana by Tom Vernon, the former Manchester United scout in Africa.

Right to Dream, set up as a charitable football academy to create pathways for young African football talent around the world, is now a multi-club, multi-academy group operating in Africa, Europe and the US with professional teams including FC Nordsjaelland in Denmark, FC Masar in Egypt and San Diego FC in MLS. Its star graduates include Mohammed Kudus (West Ham and Ghana), Mikkel Damsgaard (Brentford and Denmark) and Simon Adringa (Brighton and Ivory Coast).

As a young goalkeeper with the Sir Alex Ferguson-led Dons in the early eighties, Lawrie trained with Bobby Clark and Willie Garner but chose to pursue a career in business rather than football. After signing for Brechin City and attending Robert Gordon’s University, he had a successful management career in oil and gas in the UK, Asia and Africa with companies including bp, Hess Corporation and Tullow Oil.

It was in 2011, while leading Tullow’s business in Africa, he met Tom Vernon and after sponsoring the Ghana Academy for several years he agreed to join Right to Dream in 2019 to spearhead its expansion and attract major new investment from the Mansour family. He helped establish the new academy in Egypt, secured developer investment in a new stadium and academy complex in Denmark and led the negotiation of club expansion opportunities in the US, which culminated in the acquisition of a 50% interest in the new MLS club in San Diego, where he was chief operating officer for its first year.

AFC chairman, Dave Cormack, said: “Dave will bring a unique perspective to the board, having had a successful business career followed by a decade of working with the most successful youth academy and player trading strategy in Europe. An example is FC Nordsjaelland which, during last summer’s transfer window, and in less than 90 days, delivered a positive player trading surplus of over £40 million.

“He’s committed his own time over the last few months working with the Club, to see how we implement the BPTC football operation review, the focus of which is the transition of academy players, including U18s, to the first team, external player recruitment and player trading.

“Dave’s experience will be invaluable as we seek to strengthen our player trading model and develop first-team-ready players from the academy to deliver a return on our significant investment.”

Commenting on his appointment, Lawrie added: “It’s a great honour to join the Board of the club I’ve supported all my life, and I look forward to working with Dave and the rest of the Board to create an exciting future for the club.

“Youth development has always been central to Aberdeen’s success, and I hope that my experience with Right to Dream can help further develop this area of the club over the coming years.”

Lawrie, is married to Gillian and they split time between their homes in Aberdeen and London where their three children are based.

He joins the AFC board alongside non-executive directors, Dave Cormack, Stewart Milne, Tom Crotty, Willie Garner, Zoe Ogilvie and Dimitrios Efstathiou and executive directors Alan Burrows and Kevin MacIver.