**Ryan Reynolds’ Bold Gamble Pays Off as Wrexham Secure Promotion amid £50m Risk**
Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds has made headlines once again, not for his big-screen exploits, but for a daring financial decision taken at Wrexham AFC—a move that ultimately helped propel the Welsh club into the Championship. The latest series of the fly-on-the-wall documentary “Welcome to Wrexham”, now airing on Disney+ in the UK, has shone a spotlight on a behind-the-scenes meeting that could have altered the club’s destiny.
The documentary captures a pivotal moment when Reynolds and his co-owner Rob McElhenney, who first purchased the historic North Wales club in 2021, faced an astonishing proposal: a £50 million investment to accelerate promotion ambitions. The crucial decision, which has underpinned Wrexham’s extraordinary climb from the National League to League One and now the Championship, rested heavily on their shoulders.
Key figures—CEO Michael Williamson, board member Shaun Harvey, and head of finance Steve Phillips—joined the duo in an emergency virtual meeting to weigh up the club’s budget options ahead of the 2024/25 season. Williamson didn’t mince his words, describing the challenge of League One as “really f****** difficult” and laying out the stark choice between consolidating the club’s progress, or pushing all their chips on an all-out dash for back-to-back promotions.
Through candid exchanges, the financial implications became glaringly clear. McElhenney quizzed the group on their appetite for risk, contrasting the option of steady growth against the adrenaline rush of chasing instant triumph. The costliest item on the agenda was a state-of-the-art hybrid pitch—an eye-watering £1.7 million, prompting Reynolds to jest, “Is the grass like human hair or something?” Such levity was short-lived. The reality soon dawned: achieving Wrexham’s ambition would require not just star power, but serious financial muscle.
When the time came for a verdict, Reynolds’s response captured the spirit of the project: “Let’s f****** do it.” Those four words, expounded in the episode, signalled a decisive commitment. The risk was immense, but so too was the potential for reward. His partner, McElhenney, was visibly elated, acknowledging, “Oh my God, that is music to my ears… Historically, you’ve always been the more practical one, but I like it. Let’s keep betting on the town.”
Reynolds later reflected on the boldness of the move in a piece-to-camera scene. “Being this risky is a gambit, and I think that, in itself, it is the engine to success,” he remarked. Far from being reckless, he painted the investment as a calculated gamble—a blend of strategy and faith in Wrexham’s momentum and its passionate community.
That faith was not misplaced. Despite their newfound status as risk-takers in English football, Wrexham’s owners prudently brought in additional investors. The Allyn family, former proprietors of Welch Allyn, took on a minority stake in the club, helping to alleviate some of the burden. With a reported annual turnover of £26.7 million and a significant January signing in Sam Smith from Reading, Wrexham positioned themselves as genuine promotion contenders.
On the pitch, the results speak volumes. Manager Phil Parkinson masterminded a season that saw Wrexham secure second place in League One, cementing automatic promotion with a commanding 3-0 home victory over Charlton Athletic—a moment of jubilation in the Racecourse Ground echoing the gamble that made it all possible.
McElhenney summed up the ethos in his own words, now immortalised in the documentary: “We are all in, everything is leveraged to the hilt and when you put all of your chips on the table, you better come to win, because we cannot afford to stop it.” That relentless drive from the ownership has inspired supporters and cemented Wrexham’s resurgence as one of football’s most talked-about fairytales.
As next season looms, the club continues to face the realities of football finance, but for now, the bold £50 million wager has not only paid off—it has transformed Wrexham from a sleeping giant into a club on the brink of a new era, watched the world over. As the new chapter unfolds, all eyes remain fixed on how far Reynolds and McElhenney’s gamble can take them—and how much further they are willing to go.