Wrexham, the Welsh team acquired by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in 2021, released their financial accounts for the latest year on Thursday.
The report revealed that the amount owed to the two owner/celebrities has risen to nearly £9 million ($11.4m), up from £3.7m ($4.67m) the previous year, ending June 2022.
While the club noted that turnover increased from nearly £6m ($7.5m) to £10.5m ($13.3m) and that future prospects are promising, losses also grew to £5.1m ($6.4m) from £2.9m ($3.66m).
Reynolds and McElhenney purchased Wrexham, one of the world’s oldest football clubs, for $2.5m when the team was in the fifth tier of English football.
Wrexham AFC – Paul Mullin (Via Wrexham FC/Twitter)
Since then, Wrexham has been promoted to the English Football League and is currently aiming for consecutive promotions, which would get the team up to the third-tier League One.
Wrexham is third in League Two heading into a home game against leader Mansfield on Friday.
The top three teams at the end of the season are automatically promoted, and the next four enter a playoff for one last promotion spot. Wrexham is three points above fourth-place MK Dons with a game in hand.
Wrexham stated that the club’s losses were “deemed necessary to allow the club to maximise its full potential in the shortest time practically possible.”
“The club is under no immediate pressure to repay these loans at the expense of the progress we seek to achieve,” Wrexham said, “and further financial support will be provided/secured to support the capital expenditure projects the club is currently planning.”
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney (Via RyanReynolds/Instagram)
These projects include increasing the capacity of its Racecourse Ground stadium. Wrexham is regularly attracting crowds of more than 10,000 spectators, more than three times the number attending before the takeover and a remarkable figure for a fourth-tier team.
“The financial losses suffered by the club since the takeover shouldn’t be repeated,” Wrexham said, “with income generated by the club now sufficient to meet the operational costs of the club going forward.”
Wrexham pointed to the “continued popularity of ‘Welcome to Wrexham'” — the fly-on-the-wall documentary charting the progress of Reynolds and McElhenney as football owners — and additional revenue earned in the EFL as reasons to predict that turnover will continue to grow.
