Key Takeaways
- Wrexham council gave the club £3.8m before the final subsidy check was done.
- Experts say the early payout could have been challenged in court.
- Club owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney later put in far more private cash than the public grant.
Wrexham AFC, the Welsh side backed by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, received its first £3.8m slice of public money before officials finished the legally required subsidy test, new papers show.
Under UK rules, councils must confirm that a grant will not distort fair competition before any cash changes hands. Yet Wrexham county borough council only completed the full assessment almost five months after the February 2022 payment, a freedom-of-information reply reveals.
Lawyer Alexander Rose, who advises on state aid at Ward Hadaway, told reporters the gap would have left the award open to a legal challenge from a rival club had someone acted quickly. The one-month challenge window has now closed, making repayment unlikely.
Since 2021 the club has accepted £18m of taxpayer support—more than any other UK team—to upgrade the Racecourse Ground. Most of the money was approved under the “Wrexham Gateway” regeneration plan, even though the Hollywood owners have since poured in tens of millions from private sources.
Council leader Mark Pritchard insists “all due diligence” was carried out and calls the grant good value, noting public cash now covers only a quarter of total stadium costs.
The formal grant agreement for the full £18m was not signed until September 2025, two years after it was first drafted. By then, new UK subsidy laws with higher scrutiny thresholds had taken effect, sparing the club from extra review by the Competition and Markets Authority.
While using state funds, Wrexham still raised £36m from share issues in the year to June 2025 and sold a stake to US investment giant Apollo. Accounts show the club also repaid a £10.6m loan to Reynolds’s own firm and committed £69m to build a new stand.
A club spokesperson said the public grant is essential to meet international standards for both football and rugby events, not just domestic matches.