Scouting and Recruitment

Wolves have a network of scouts who work for the club on a local, national and international basis. They look for players predominantly from under-6 to under-16 and once the scouts identify a player, they recommend them to the Academy recruitment department. 

Wolves do run open trials, which are all held at the Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground. These events are always advertised with a Wolves contact email address, for example, test@wolves.co.uk. If it does not include a wolves.co.uk email address on the flyer, this is not an official open trial.  

We always watch players at their local clubs or schools before inviting them for a trial. Therefore, if you write in for a trial, you should always include a fixture list with kick-off times and venues for your team. 

You should also write a CV to tell us about your football background, including information such as date of birth, playing position, clubs previously played for and any representative honours. These can include those attained with school, district or county teams. 

Letters of reference and recommendation can also help to support an application. 

We are only able to trial players with an EU passport or those who have ‘leave to remain’ documentation.

Unfortunately, you may never know. However, our scouts are always in club kit. You will only know if we make contact via your current club – we will always approach your coach or manager before contacting a player’s parents. 

Quite simply, talent. We understand that players come in all shapes and sizes, with a variety of strengths and weaknesses. We consider a player’s technical, tactical, physical, psychological and social attributes, as well as looking at relative age effect and maturation rates. 

We also must compare them to players currently in the Academy to assess whether a target player has the potential (we understand this may take time) to be better than the players we already have registered. We must also take into consideration the effect on the child if they are sent for an Academy trial and are not ready, as this could be a negative experience for them. 

Football is a hugely competitive profession in which to ‘make it’. Obviously, talent is required, but it takes real resilience and determination to be successful in the game. Some people are noticed early on, and others develop later, so keep working hard, and keep emailing clubs at a variety of levels. 

The higher the level you are currently playing at, the more likely you are to be noticed, so even if you don’t get a trial at Wolves, look to move up the leagues at whatever level you can. Don’t lose heart, and however far you get, do it for the enjoyment of the game – professional recognition is an obvious bonus, but a love of the game will give you satisfaction whatever the outcome! 

Please email your information to: 

jackmaydew@wolves.co.uk if aged between 6 and 11 and live within 90 minutes of Wolverhampton.

harryhooman@wolves.co.uk if aged between 12 and 16 and live outside of 90 minutes of Wolverhampton. 

Please remember, we get hundreds of trial applications each week, so are not able to respond to emails, and we cannot watch everyone. If you do not receive an email back, unfortunately it is unsuccessful at this moment in time.  

The club has previously been the subject of false advertising of trials by unauthorised companies. We are aware that some people have received letters and/or email correspondence purportedly offering them trials at the club’s Academy in exchange for the payment of a fee. Please note, these letters and email correspondence are fraudulent and have not been sent by the club. We are working with the relevant authorities to try and stop this. The club do not charge trialists a fee. 

If you have any questions, or would like to discuss any correspondence that appears to have been sent to you by the club in relation to trials at the Academy, please contact Harry Hooman on harryhooman@wolves.co.uk. 

At Wolves we are committed to safe practise and we have a well-established safeguarding approach and procedures in place for all our Academy children and young people. We have a team of professional grassroot scouts that are DBS checked and have regular safeguarding training. As parents and coaches, we want to reassure you that we take our responsibility very seriously, but we also want to empower you to challenge us (or any other scout) if you feel something isn’t right.

Below is a set of standards you should expect from a Wolves grassroots scout. We always want to strengthen our practise and we always welcome feedback.

• We will always identify ourselves to the club managers/officials at the start of a game or training session if we are there to scout for players.
• We welcome you challenging any unidentified or suspicious adults observing matches to ask about their involvement with the game. We would rather you asked about us than worried about us!
• We will carry club identification and a Wolves business card. On this card will be our scout’s contact details, their manager’s contact details, our head of safeguarding AND a link to this page. If they are unable to provide any identification ask them for their name and the person at the club who they formally report to and you can ask them to leave and please contact lisacarter@wolves.co.uk.
• If you have any person claiming to be a scout who you have concerns about, please report as soon as is realistically possible to your County FA Welfare Officer. Report the name of the individual who has claimed to be a scout, and the club that they claimed to be working for where no identification has been provided or where you have reason to doubt the validity of the ID.
• We do not ask any player to pay in order to have a trial at Wolves. If this is suggested to you, please contact lisacarter@wolves.co.uk.

Let’s Make Football Safe – Not Sorry