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Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy the lowly Welsh football club Wrexham and vow to make it a “global force”.

Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have bought one of the oldest soccer teams in the world and are planning to document their first foray into the sport on a fly-on-the-wall TV show.

Reynolds and McElhenney have in a short time completed the acquisition of a $ 2.5 million ($ 3.42 million) team playing in the fifth division of the English game for success-hungry fans of Welsh club Wrexham.

“This is really happening,” said Reynolds, a Canadian-born actor best known for starring in the Deadpool films, at the end of a short video announcing the purchase of the 156-year-old club.

Reynolds and McElhenney recently called Wrexham a “sleeping giants” in a conversation with members of the club’s fan trust and outlined their vision of making the team a “global force”.

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“You may never have heard of Wrexham, the Racecourse Ground or (sponsor) Ifor Williams,” Reynolds said during the announcement on Monday.

He put a Welsh accent and added, “But you will.”

In order to raise the profile of a club that ranks 14th in the National League and has been outside the four main pro leagues in English football since 2008, the new owners are ready to use Wrexham behind the scenes in a similar television series that have documented Manchester City, Tottenham and Sunderland in recent years.

“That’s what happened. We’re documenting it,” McElhenney, an American actor and director who was behind the Philadelphia TV show, It’s Always Sunny, told fans.

“We should think about Wrexham the way Man U (Manchester United) think about Man U. Get involved in clubs and communities. What a great way to do that,” said McElhenney.

A board shows the details for the next game of Wrexham AFC football club outside the home stadium.
Wrexham’s home, Racecourse Ground, isn’t exactly Old Trafford – it has a capacity of 10,771.(Reuters: Phil Noble)

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Amazon Prime was one of the first to respond to Wrexham’s takeover announcement on Twitter and send its congratulations to the actors.

Wrexham, nicknamed the Red Dragons, has been a fan club since 2011.

The club confirmed that the RR McReynolds Company would take 100 percent control after a supporter vote – subject to confirmation by football authorities.

The result was clear: 1,809 fans voted for and 26 against, with nine abstentions, which Reynolds and McElhenney supported by 98.6 percent.

“The gang is buying a North Wales football club,” read a tweet from Wrexham, a club from a town of around 65,000 near the north-western English border.

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Chris Jones, a member of the Supporters’ Trust, was recently with Reynolds and McElhenney and said the actors knew everything about Wrexham’s history – from the 1970s when it saw 20,000 people to the 1990s when The Team had some big wins in the FA Cup, including against the then English champions Arsenal on the racetrack.

“They wanted a European club with potential and history that was in the wrong position, but also a big part of the community,” said Jones.

“So they sent out advisors to find a club that met their criteria. And we are.”

Jones said the new owners had a British-style sense of humor and spoke modestly of their hopes and dreams for Wrexham, which include improving the stadium and the squad, and bringing in a seasoned CEO to run the club.

“This is an absolute dream,” said Jones.

Fans are currently banned from playing football games in the UK amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Reynolds has said he wants to “attend as many games as possible”.

“We want to have a beer with the fans,” he said, adding that he and McElhenney intended to be “great ambassadors for the club” and “introduce the club to the world”.

AP

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