Spend again! Why Ryan Reynolds & Rob McElhenney don’t have to be ‘careful’ in transfer window – with Wrexham co-owners backed to invest ‘heavily’

The Red Dragons are hoping to take that step up in the not too distant future – preferably in 2025 – but for now they are readying themselves for life in League One. Back-to-back promotions have lifted the Welsh outfit into the third tier of English football for the first time in 20 years.

Reynolds and McElhenney have bankrolled a meteoric rise for Wrexham, with their every move being caught on camera by an award-winning documentary, and football finance expert Dr Dan Plumley has told The Real EFL of why more cash can be splashed in 2024: “I think if you look at where we’re at right now, and you’ve seen what Wrexham have done already, I think it’s likely that they’ll continue to invest. And as I say, you know, they’ve got big aspirations. So it’s when you get into the Championship that you have to be a little bit more careful. But I’d certainly see them pushing again this year.”

Plumley added on why the Red Dragons are free to spend in League One, with the confirmation of a July general election likely to postpone the implementation of an independent regulator in English football: “There is the election and the independent regulator in the background as well and that will take time to see what that looks like from a regulation point of view in the detail. But even given the way the current [regulations] are at the minute, it’s still likely that Wrexham, as an example, will spend and we’ve seen Stockport do it as well haven’t we in the last couple of years. There is a soft salary cap in League One, it’s something called a Salary Cost Management Protocol but it’s based on wages to turnover ratio. Sixty per cent recommended but not enforced so, theoretically, Wrexham could still spend heavily in League One before you’ve got to look at ‘if you get to the Championship, then you’ve got to conform with profit and sustainability regs'.”

Wrexham are in the process of drawing up recruitment plans for the next transfer window. Phil Parkinson has made it clear that he wants to further bolster his ranks, with reinforcements required in order to compete with more established clubs in League One.