Wrexham AFC has risen meteorically through the English football leagues thanks to the deep pockets of Hollywood movie star owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Yet the club has also had £18m in help from other, unwitting backers: Welsh taxpayers.
The club has received almost £18m in nonrepayable grants from the Welsh government via the local council, according to UK government state aid disclosures – far in excess of the direct aid listed for any other football club in Britain.
Wrexham County borough council had previously said that the club would receive a “substantial amount” of a £25m Welsh government grant to redevelop the area around the Wrexham General train station next door to its stadium, the Racecourse Ground. However, the council has not previously revealed that the football club would directly receive most of that cash.
Wrexham is owned by Reynolds and McElhenney, who has changed his name to Rob Mac, according to UK and US company filings. Reynolds, the producer and star of the billion-dollar Deadpool film series, and McElhenney, the producer and star of comedy series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, completed the takeover in 2021.
The Welsh government money flowed even as its star owners produced the four series of Welcome to Wrexham Disney TV documentary charting the “fairytale” takeover – reportedly pulling in as many as 5 million viewers an episode. While Wrexham AFC does not gain any revenue directly from the series, other companies owned by Reynolds and McElhenney are thought to have benefited from lucrative production deals.
The stars also helped the club to win sponsorship deals from global brands including Facebook owner Meta, United Airlines and TikTok – names that would be coveted by Premier League teams.
Stefan Borson, a football finance expert and the head of sport at the law firm McCarthy Denning, said: “This looks like an £18m nonrepayable subsidy to a privately owned business now flirting with a £350m valuation. Its existing owners are US-based and very wealthy and liquid private individuals.
“The club, and its owners, will benefit from the stand for the next 50 years, yet at no point would the taxpayer be repaid or directly profit from the club’s rise.
“The current ownership have put Wrexham on the global map but it is hard to understand why funding this stand in this way would be a priority for the government.”
Separate to the grant, the Welsh government in 2020 also bought land adjoining the stadium in order to accommodate a new stand. The Welsh government has repeatedly talked up the boost to local transport from its £25m investment, without mentioning that most of the money was to be granted to the football club.
The grant comes at a time when council budgets are under pressure. The news site Wrexham.com this week reported on an alleged “budget crisis” in some of the city’s schools, with some schools possibly forced to cut spending to make up for a £3m budget deficit. Mark Pritchard, who leads the group of independent and Conservative councillors who control the council, this week told the Leader newspaper that “redundancies will be inevitable” if the Welsh government does not increase the £263m council budget.
The council said that funding for the project was not taken from its budgets, but was provided solely through Welsh government grants. The club must also make the Racecourse Ground (Cae Ras in Welsh) available for other sporting events and concerts, which the council said would create “additional benefits for the residents of north Wales”.
A spokesperson said: “The Racecourse is an important cultural and heritage asset for the city of Wrexham and we are obviously keen to protect it for the future.
“Utilising grant funding from Welsh government, the council have provided funding to the football club to enable the redevelopment plans to be enhanced to a standard to enable international matches to be hosted in Wrexham once again.”
A Wrexham AFC spokesperson said the funds would be used for overall improvements of the stadium and a new Kop stand that would bring the stadium to international level.
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The spokesperson said: “The impact of these improvements, and the ability to host international sporting events in north Wales, will create both a catalyst for local job creation and provide an overall economic uplift to the region due to the increased number of visitors attracted to the events and their economic activity while they are in the area.”
The £18m for Wrexham would also represent a significant advantage over other clubs that did not have recourse to direct state aid. Stockport County finished one place below Wrexham this summer and were denied hugely lucrative promotion to the Championship; Stockport made £9m in revenues for the year ended June 2024.
The only other football league clubs named in the state aid disclosures were Plymouth Argyle, which received £2m, Swansea City, which received £400,000, and Bradford City, which received £670,000.
The records show two direct grants from Wrexham County borough council to Wrexham AFC Limited. The first was a £3.8m payment awarded in February 2022, while the second was a £14m payment awarded in September, according to the records. Wrexham’s 2023 accounts refer to £4m in “deferred grants”.
In the records, the council claimed: “The location and financial challenges of the site mean that the redevelopment of the stand and peripheral improvements, each to the standards required by Uefa, were deemed commercially unviable.” It added that there was “no incentive for the private sector to pursue the project as the value of the economic and social benefits it will bring are not taken into account in the primarily monetary driven investment decision-making process”.
However, Wrexham AFC’s 2024 accounts suggested that was not the case. They said: “Increasing the capacity at the Racecourse Ground is a fundamental requirement of creating a long-term business plan for the club.”
Welcome to Wrexham does not directly contribute to Wrexham AFC’s revenues. However, the global exposure has helped it to massively increase turnover from £10.5m in 2023 to £26.7m in the year to June 2024, according to its latest published accounts. The Financial Times reported that revenues in the last year could reach £50m – including 100,000 shirt sales for a city with about 66,000 in its urban area.
The Welsh government said: “Public sector funding will make the crucial difference between the club satisfying league requirements and meeting the more demanding international fixture standards.
“This investment helps create a venue that can host competitive international football at the world’s oldest international stadium, boosting the local economy and delivering a fitting landmark for Wrexham.”
