By Lianne Kolirin
Religion is all important to the beautiful game, the Football Association’s head of diversity and inclusion has told an event organised by the Religion Media Centre.
Speaking at the home ground of his own football club, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Dal Darroch told the RMC’s Creating Connections event that religion and football are “inextricably linked”.
He said: “The way faith and football come together, they create a real extraordinary synergy that unites, inspires, uplifts and brings people together in a way that feels truly magical.”
He was glad that initiatives with the same aim, such as the RMC’s Creating Connections event, bringing together all faiths and none to build relationships, could be associated with football.
Mr Darroch said it was “amazing” to be part of the regular Creating Connections series, which gives faith communities the chance to meet members of the media. This was the twelfth such event and the first to be hosted by a football club.
“Having spoken in many environments such as Wembley Stadium and parliament, this one means a lot to me because I can see and hear my grandparents, who originated here in the 1950s, here with me in spirit because Wolves is my club and I love the Black Country,” he said.
He felt like he had come “full circle”. “I’ve lived outside the Midlands for a long time and now I’m back and very proud to be here behind the Wolves badge today.”
Wolves’ emphasis on diversity and inclusion among players, staff and fans, mirrors the belief that stronger links between different groups, strengthens community. This is a sentiment that is at the heart of the FA, Mr Darroch told the gathering.
“Sport unites people — similar to the entertainment industry, similar to music — sport really does bring people together. So, when people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I just say, ‘I sell dreams’.
“I’m just trying to make our game accessible to as many people as possible so that they can have the right to access football, which of course is the nation’s No 1 sport.”
Efforts to boost diversity and understanding of the many faiths and cultures in British society have been successful, he said, though he admitted that the “landscape is very very complex”.
Although, he said, there were a record number of people from minority groups playing football, the FA had also seen a 47 per cent rise in racist abuse across all levels.
He was speaking two days after the FA published its strategy for boosting equality, diversity and inclusion in the four years to 2028. The three focal points, according to Mr Darroch, were to improve representation in every aspect of the game, to drive inclusion and tackle discrimination.
Understanding faith was key to managing all three aspects. “Faith, whether expressed through organised religion, spirituality or personal beliefs can shape how people perceive themselves and their place in the world, alongside their connection to sport and football,” he said. “That’s one thing that’s always struck me — that faith and identity are so closely connected that it doesn’t make sense if we didn’t explore football through faith.”
Education and building strong relationships with community groups was key, he said, as he revealed hopes of a potential interfaith symposium at Wembley next year. “To connect with our participants — anyone who engages with football — we must make sure that we mobilise across every single faith group and diverse communities across the country.”
He gave numerous examples of how this thinking was being implemented, including through invitations for different religious groups to attend Wembley Stadium for its “faith and football” events, which include prayer services.
“Our faith and football series is really the flagship thing that we do,” he said. “They create a foundation for long-lasting goodwill, they open the door to really meaningful conversations, collaborations and future partnerships and could be a gateway to dialogue and participation for the future.”
Mr Darroch, a Sikh who wears a turban, said: “The message really is that football is for all. “Sometimes it needs people with lived experience to push the message and make sure the message lands appropriately. It doesn’t always happen if you don’t have that lived experience.”
Earlier in his talk, Mr Darroch told the gathering that his grandparents had arrived in Wolverhampton in the mid-1950s when Enoch Powell was the city’s MP.
His grandfather had been in Wolverhampton 14 years when Powell made his infamous anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech. “At the time they didn’t quite understand it but they knew that bad things were happening.”
Earlier in the day, guests at the event heard how far the city had emerged from Powell’s shadow.
Opening the event, Linda Leach, the mayor of Wolverhampton, said she was “very proud” of the city’s diversity and “strong relations with all faiths who are welcomed in our community”. She added: “At this time in the world, with so many conflicts and religious hatred, it has never been more important for faith groups to come together.”
Her sentiments were echoed by a range of other speakers, including the recently appointed Bishop of Wolverhampton, Dr Timothy Wambunyathe, and Labour councillor Jas Dehar, who chairs Interfaith Wolverhampton.
The religious landscape of Wolverhampton, where 36 per cent of the population hails from black and minority ethnic groups, was outlined in presentations by the Rev Ray Gaston of St Chad & St Mark, and Dr Opinderjit Takhar, director of the centre for Sikh and Punjabi studies at Wolverhampton University, and a trustee of the RMC.
David Pattison, chief operating officer at the City of Wolverhampton Council, said good inter-communal relations were all important when riots erupted across the country over the summer and “a whole system of things kicked in” to prevent trouble from breaking out in Wolverhampton. “The strength of the community is actually the way it works together,” he said. “We have already got really strong relationships” and “the work had already been done”.
Some sought to whip up community tensions by passing on misinformation, but trouble was avoided because there was already “regular dialogue and conversation” between communities. The media did not necessarily help to reduce community tensions, Mr Pattison suggested, and “the problems rather than the positives” were seized upon.
Creating Connections presented an opportunity for Wolverhampton residents to share their stories with members of the media in attendance. Among them was Manny Singh Kang, who recently won ITV’s Pride of Britain fundraiser of the year award for raising more than £260,000 for charity amounts by selling samosas outside the stadium on match days. “I’m proud of my faith,” he said. “I explain my faith and I show my faith, and sharing with others is part of it.”
Also telling his story was Saqib Hussain of Oakwood Media, a groundbreaking production agency at HMP Oakwood in Staffordshire where prisoners learn to create design and film content for internal TV channels and external clients.
Mr Hussain said: “They can sit in their cells and do nothing or learn real skills so that when they are released they can actually work in the industry.”
Attendees then had the chance to hear directly from journalists who cover news in the city. Lucy Collins, BBC head of news output in the West Midlands, admitted that constraints on time and resources mean that “it’s really challenging” to represent her audience at all times.
Other panellists included Deborah Hardiman of the Wolverhampton Express and Star, Maira Butt who writes for The Independent and for the RMC, freelance journalist Amardeep Bassey, also a RMC contributor, and Chris Allen of WCR FM, the city’s radio station.
Guests had the chance to quiz the media, with some expressing mistrust and disappointment at the way some stories had been handled. One, a vicar at one of the city’s churches, said that he had been left “hurt” by local coverage of work carried out in his church’s graveyard.
Another church leader asked whether the press preferred to focus on scandal rather than positive work by communities, while another guest raised the issue of questionable elements within one section of a faith community that had not been investigated.
Community members were given advice on how to contact the media with their stories, while the panel admitted that they needed to do more to uncover some of these stories. “I’m really open to your stories and would love to reflect you more,” Ms Collins said.
“What I want to do is tell people’s stories and represent my audience. That’s really the bottom line. It’s a constant challenge but one that I’m really happy to take on.”
