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Khalsa appoint Dopazo as new manager

Sporting Khalsa are pleased to introduce Juan Dopazo as the club’s new manager.

Dopazo rejoined Khalsa in September 2024 as a first team coach and helped guide the club to safety in tier three last season. Khalsa’s new manager has had previous experience in both the men’s and the women’s game. Boasting a UEFA A coaching license, Dopazo will now take over from Andy Mulligan and lead the women’s team for the 2025-26 campaign.

Now that the contract has been signed, Dopazo is excited to be in charge of the women’s side after a successful 2024-25 season. He said: “I’m extremely honoured to be appointed as the new manager because I know there were a number of strong candidates who were involved within the application process.

“Khalsa is a special club to me as it was the first club to give me an opportunity to coach at senior level in 2015 while I was doing my Level 2 in football coaching.

“I have always followed Khalsa throughout the years after I left until I had the opportunity to come back last season to support the first team in their first season at Tier 3.”

Dopazo will come into Khalsa in their most successful period in their history. The 2023-24 campaign saw the club do the double as they lifted the Division One Midlands title as well as the Staffordshire Women’s Challenge Cup. The following campaign saw Khalsa stay up comfortably in the Northern Premier Division as they finished tenth with 21 points. This also saw another run to the county cup final before Stoke City got the better of Khalsa.

After the success outgoing manager Andy Mulligan achieved, Dopazo is aiming to continue the momentum going into the 2025-26 campaign.

He added: “Andy has done an amazing job, not only last season. Undoubtedly, he is the most successful manager in the history of the Women's Team. Obviously, we want to keep improving as a club, and the first objective is to make sure we stay up in Tier 3 for another season.

“In order to achieve this, we have already discussed a number of minor objectives to achieve throughout the season, which will allow us to do this and also to improve the performance of the team from last season.

“These first months are all about reshaping the team by identifying areas we need to improve on and off the pitch. We are planning a solid preseason to help our players to be ready to compete from the first match of the upcoming season.

“We understand the challenge we have ahead of us, so we need to keep finding ways to improve “the 1%'s” in different areas such as strength & conditioning, analysis etc.”

In the 2024-25 campaign, Khalsa had established the Guardian Warehousing Arena as a fortress. The fans were crucial to this success, as the fans helped give the girls vital support to see out some tricky ties. Now, Dopazo is hopeful that this backing from fans can continue into the next season.

He stated: “The main message to the fans is that we want to keep feeling the support they give to our players in each game (home & away). We will work hard to represent this club in the best possible way week in week out so fans can feel proud of the club they support, and to inspire the young girls who dream to play at this level or higher in the future.”

Sporting Khalsa chairman Kelly Williams was also pleased with the appointment as she said: "We had a lot of applications for the role and some very strong candidates, which was really promising to see and evidences how the club is perceived and what an exciting role it is.

"It was great to meet the candidates that were shortlisted, they all brought something different and it was difficult to choose, but we confident we have the right person for the role.

"Juan is not only a great person, but also a fantastic coach and tactician, his passion for developing players is extremely important as this has been at the forefront of our philosophy and a crucial factor in our success in recent seasons. The committee were impressed not only by Juan's passion for the role but his vision for the team, drawing on his familiarity with the club to present a practical and promising plan that can deliver positive results and build on recent success.”

Women's open sessions begin this week and will continue for the next two weeks, thereafter it will be on an invite-only basis. Khalsa are seeking players with experience in the FA Women's National League and above.