Wolves have this week become one of the first clubs to participate in a new Premier League initiative, which has seen the club’s coaches complete an anti-racism practice workshop.
The Anti-Racist Coaching (ARC) workshop is part of the Premier League coaching team’s offer to provide development opportunities in-situ to academies and their respective staff.
The workshop aims to support academy environments across the game to enable all players to thrive and reach their full potential by affirming their own ethnic, cultural and religious identities and being their authentic selves whilst developing theirs and coaches’ cultural awareness.
With Wolverhampton boasting a population full of different cultures, backgrounds and religions, the city’s football team – and its academy – follows suit.
This year’s One Pack Week campaign has an internal focus, aiming to educate and foster conversation among staff, coaches and players. A key part of this initiative has been the ARC sessions, which saw 45 staff members, including full time coaches across the different age groups, physios, analysts, scouts and player care leads from across Wolves Academy take part.
When Darren Ryan, head of player development at Wolves, found out about the chance to be involved in the workshops during a recent meeting of academy coaches at the Premier League’s offices in London, he arranged for the sessions to be carried out at Compton Park during One Pack Week.
Ryan said: “These sessions are all about properly educating the staff about people’s cultures, upbringing and expanding our understanding of diversity. These are topics we all talk about, but it's important to continuously educate the staff.
“Within the club and the academy, we've got a really high level of ethnic-diversity among our players and staff, but these sessions are being carried out so our staff can increase their understanding of different religions, different cultures and different backgrounds, not just in our players, but in our staff members as well.
“We’ve recently just had players and staff observe Ramadan, and our staff have already participated in workshops around that, but there are several different cultural backgrounds which we need to increase our learning about, and these workshops are a really big help in us doing that.”
Constructed based on a research project conducted alongside Leeds Beckett University in 2022/23, the introductory workshop look to increase the awareness of inclusive coaching practice (with a specific focus on ethnicity, culture and race) both on an individual and club level and support the adoption of a proactive inclusive coaching approach that is sustainable and effective.
This culminates in the creation of an initial action plan for attendees to collectively and individually bring the ARC principles in their respective club whilst offering further support to each club post-workshop to help them continue their own ARC journey.
With Wolves Academy being one of the most diverse in the country when it comes to the makeup of its players and staff, Ryan hopes these workshop sessions will also increase the connectivity between coaches at Wolves and its players and their family members.
“As coaches, we want to do everything possible to connect with our players. We've got a lot of staff that are based in Wolverhampton, but there are also staff who live an hour, an hour and a half away, and we all want to have that same understanding of the different cultures and religions that are based around Wolverhampton and the Midlands area.
“We all felt it was important for our staff and for the football club to put on these workshops. Not only is it education for the coaches when it comes to players and staff, but also the parents’ backgrounds, because all of our staff – especially our younger coaches – come into contact with parents on a weekly basis, and it’s important we can understand their cultures and backgrounds as well when you are having conversations with them.”
The anti-racism sessions are just one of a host of activities, festivals and workshops which are taking place at Wolves during One Pack Week, which spotlights the equality, diversity and inclusion work across the organisation.
“Being one of the most diverse clubs and academies in the Premier League, One Pack Week is very important for us,” Ryan added. “When we looked at the dates where the Premier League could come in and deliver these sessions, we felt it was important to do it during One Pack Week, or as close to it as possible.
“One Pack Week is not only about the club celebrating our diversity, but it's also about bringing everyone together inside the club, working together and increasing our understanding of each other’s differences as well as similarities.
“We're always learning and whether it’s bettering our understanding of people's backgrounds, cultures, religions or lived experiences, these sessions will make sure that we're all educated in the right way and with a consistent approach.”
Gurpri Bains, equality, diversity and inclusion manager for Wolves added: “The ARC workshops are a crucial step in ensuring that all of our academy staff are equipped with the same knowledge and strategies to support both players and each other.
“Not only are we fostering personal growth, but the workshops encourage a proactive approach to anti-racism, by reflecting on our practices, learning together it empowers coaches to actively contribute to creating inclusive environments, driving positive change both on and off the field.”
The ARC sessions are currently being offered to all Premier League and Category One Academies with the ambition to share with other clubs across the game in during the 2025/26 season.
