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It was pretty clear Wrexham A.F.C. gained access to plenty of resources it didn’t have before Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney teamed up to purchase the Welsh soccer club in 2020—which apparently includes access to private jets.
That’s far from the only perk Wrexham players (and their fans) have been able to take advantage of since the new owners seized control and invested a ton of money in the team in their ultimately successful quest to earn a promotion to the Football League, where the squad had played for 87 years before being relegated to the National League in 2008.
That includes some upgrades to the historic stadium known as The Racecourse Ground, the pricy whiskey Reynolds shelled out on at a nearby pub to celebrate the win that got the team promoted, and the lavish Las Vegas vacation the members of the club got to enjoy for free after punching their ticket to a higher tier.
According to the BBC, the players who ended the previous season at the top of the table also didn’t have to worry about the lengthy road trips most guys in the National League are subjected to on a regular basis, as the outlet reports the team took 16 private flights to games over the course of the previous campaign in order to cut down on travel time.
As The Athletic notes, Wrexham is in a somewhat remote area of Wales that can make getting to other parts of the United Kingdom a bit of an ordeal, which presumably led to Reynolds and McElhenney deciding it was worth spending money on the private jet that was undoubtedly a more attractive option than the bus they’d otherwise have to rely on.
However, that decision has apparently caused a minor stir thanks to people who’ve questioned if the potential (and, depending on who you ask, unproven) benefits of reducing the amount of time spent going back and forth from Wrexham justifies the environmental impact of opting for a private plane over a more ecologically-friendly alternative.
It’s worth noting flying from place to place is standard practice for Premier League teams (who have also been subjected to some backlash from climate activists for going that route), so maybe the owners are simply trying to help the players have the same mentality as guys at that level by treating them to a similar experience.