Joe Hunt, Wolves international projects manager, is leading the project, following a successful venture into Singapore previously, and is now building contacts in the football development in India.

Using webinars, Joe shared Wolves’ best practices with coaches and now discusses the club’s new and exciting adventure with wolves.co.uk.

On how the project began

“Since I began my role in July 2019, we have had an interest in entering the Indian market for our football development activities. Working with Jonathan from the commercial team, we did some research around possible ways to do this. We had a fantastic call with Watford who recommended a company called Boss Entertainment India, who they had used this year. Shaan and his team at Boss Entertainment India are young, energetic, love the Premier League and obviously Wolves.

“It was a nice way to start our work in India, showing professional clubs can work together with idea sharing and best practice. Boss Entertainment India have a wealth of knowledge and good network our coaches throughout India. We decided that during lockdown, the best way to engage with the 60 coaches in India was with some free webinars, which I would deliver on. We conducted the webinars over zoom on three different Saturdays covering the following topics:

SESSION 1 | Getting started and individual focusing.

SESSION 2 | An insight into ‘gameplay’ through the ages. How tactics are used in the development of players at the elite level.

SESSION 3 | Looking at Football Fitness and player motivation across the age groups and various levels of the game.

“They invited coaches from different clubs who are at various levels of coaching within India, I would deliver for 30-40 minutes and then have a question and answer session. The sessions were based on some of my own personal experiences in coaching but also how we work at Wolves, from Nuno Espirito Santo and the first-team all the way through our academy to the amazing work our Foundation teams does.”

On successful webinars

“Probably the most engaging webinar is when we talked about gameplay, how teams need to be adaptive in how they play. The perfect example of that was how Nuno can play a 3-4-3, but in game change to a 3-5-2.

“We had some fantastic feedback on the three sessions – our next step as a club which we are currently working on is a digital academy. The pandemic has cause serious problems with our international work and the ability to support our partners around the world on the grass. Microsoft Teams and Zoom have been amazing for our continued delivery, our fantastic academy staff have delivered every week on various topics and it has been a joy to listen to all the work that goes in behind the scenes.”

On plans to expand in the future

“When the pandemic is over, we’re looking to break into the India market, go over there and link with international schools, academies, clubs and do more football development activities actually on ground. We have linked with some amazing partners over the last year and would love to increase our work in India.”

On the Indian market

“India is a new market and is an emerging market. What we’re hearing is the guys out there don’t actually get to talk to people at clubs they’re currently linked with, butt coaches were able to ask me about experiences, coaching, Wolves, whatever they like.

Boss Entertainment

“We are really excited to have taken a small, but big step into the development of football in India through the amazing knowledge of Joe Hunt and Wolves”