Wrexham's Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney pay out another £187k in SToK Racecourse stadium boost for Hollywood co-owners

The Hollywood co-chairmen in North Wales have been leading a bid to acquire the lease to the club’s iconic ground from the Wrexham Football Supporter’s Society Limited (WST) – having paid £2m to purchase the freehold of the Racecourse Ground back in June 2022.

Negotiations between the club and WST have become protracted, but a positive outcome that benefits all parties is now in sight – with Wrexham announcing that a recommendation has been made to the supporters membership group that a proposal from the current board should be accepted.

With the stadium lease set to be surrendered, the Red Dragons can press ahead with their Kop stand redevelopment project. It has also been agreed that the club will remain in its current surroundings until at least 2115.

Reynolds and McElhenney have said in a statement confirming that the club will make a payment of £187,000 upon surrender of the lease, a payment of £1,000 per annum (increasing by 3% per annum) and meet the legal costs of the WST connected with the surrender of the lease: "We were delighted to receive the support of the Directors of the WST and share their understandable desire to protect the long-term future of the Club. Our legacy at the Club will not be defined while we are its custodians, so we wanted to address the anomaly in the WST lease for the Racecourse Ground that did not include the requirement for the team to actually play at the stadium, only not allow it to be used for any other purpose. We didn’t want anyone in the future to be able to exploit that position.

"The payment of £187,000, is an equivalent amount to that contributed by fans to save the Club. To know that we will provide the funding to effectively pay everyone back who contributed to save the Club is worth every penny and gives us a great deal of satisfaction. We would appeal to the 824 members who have a vote, to do so in favour of the proposal and allow the Club to continue on this wonderful journey we are all on."

Reynolds and McElhenney have invested heavily in Wrexham on and off the field, with the club currently in the process of piecing together another promotion push in 2023-24 – having returned to the Football League in record-breaking style last season.