Promotion/Championship/Finance/Ownership/Costs….

Investment - committing resources into something expected to gain value over time.
All I'm saying is that to me, 'investments' seems an odd word to use to describe players that technically aren't ours. It really isn't any deeper than that.

 

Nobody is suggesting administration automatically follows but common sense says if debts remain unpaid and the club isn’t sold and the debts pile up , which with interest they will…..Then ? Managed properly it can work but if not ?

 

You wouldn’t do it with your household budget if you RENT your house would you ?

 

I thought (and maybe naively so) that what Wrexham have done/is doing is sustainable? They have bought their way through the leagues but not through spunking the owners money. I thought there budget came from revenue from the netflix documentary and fanfare. They were able to attract big sponsorship deals through huge company's that would have been unobtainable for any other National league, League two and league one club due to the celebrity status and networking of the owners.
It may have a ceiling when they reach the prem but considering where they have come from, you can only applaud what they have achieved, not only for the club but the town as well.

I'm far from a football financial specialist but was just my take on what they have done.

 

I don’t know.

I don’t rent my house.

 

They did spend a lot of the owners money getting out the NL... "Since taking over Wrexham AFC in February 2021 for roughly £2 million ($2.5 million), Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have invested heavily in the club, with financial reports indicating the club owed them approximately £9 million to £15 million ($11.4 million – $19 million) in loans as of early 2025". It does seem that they paid the loans back in 2025.

I don't know if it's sustainable? It probably is whilst they have the celeb air to it? But if they sell the club to some American investment fund for example in a few seasons and walk away, the FX doc probably ends, as who really wants to see the club when the celebs leave? If the doc ends, there's a chance sponsors may drop out too if the global visibility fades. The celebs need to stay onboard to the PL, once they are there and set, they can sell and there's still a global appeal for the PL and sponsors etc would stay on and there might be some itch in seeing life after the celeb ownership in Wrexham for a short term.

I don't know if it can be classed as a sustainable way to run a football club, as it's the only club really ran in this way in the country? The celeb boom never really kicked on and Hollywood haven't come flooding over to be "the next Wrexham" because it's already been done. So it's it technically sustainable? Probably. But it's not a blueprint that is likely to be copied.

 

The difficulty for Bradford City at the moment is that they are still operating, broadly, on the model that you describe.

We are now competing against clubs that don't need to think like that. They can layer debt, offset against losses in their owner's portfolios, borrow against the club's income stream etc etc. That isn't going away, although the odd club might fall victim to this, the football industry is booming in a global market that is built on debt and speculation. Every time a club gets into this e.g. Lincoln it appears, our ability to compete gets a bit more difficult.

 

So to stand still next season SR would need to overspend/invest to the same value as he is currently?

We have an ageing squad and a number of loan players. I find it difficult to believe, that without further investment, we will be able to achieve this year's level of performance.

 

Sad that the only way to compete at a higher level you have to go into debt how fooking mad is that ?????

Why the powers that be allow it to go on is beyond me ............look at the mess thats been created at Sheff Wed and how that was allowed to go on.

Bury and Macclesfield the same ok going on about managable debt but it only takes a loon like Chansiri at Wednesday to really fook up a club

 

Hence why he needs to look at himself and see if he can meet the expectations of the fans going forward on his own.

 

I can’t agree. It is an investment. If they drive us on or are influential in getting us promoted then that was a worthwhile investment. We have to do it this way because we haven’t got piles of money to just go out and buy top players. It’s a risk but then all investment is a risk. It is short term but that’s ok because come the summer we will know which league we will be in and plan long term accordingly. We now have a team full of league 1/CH/PL players. That is an improvement. Whether we get promoted or not.

 

As do I.

TBH, if the club has gone to its max on budget, then I recognise it's being as ambitious in intent as it can be, but the execution I think is poor. In January we've brought in loans that on the face of it at least look underwhelming, and short-term aging talent that has pretty scathing reviews from fans of the departing club.

Strategically, very little of that 'investment' is going to stay inside he club. Its pretty chaotic and sloppy in planning and execution to my mind.

 

Investing is putting money in the hope of a return that’s not what happens in football. Rupp has wrote off money in order to spend more