Real 'reason' Wrexham took 37-minute flight for League One match as Ryan Reynolds under fire

Wrexham's Hollywood owners have been criticised after it was found that the club chartered a private jet for a brief 37-minute flight ahead of their game against Wycombe Wanderers

Wrexham's Hollywood owners have come under fire after the club was found to have chartered environmentally damaging short-haul flights. The Welsh team secured a vital 1-0 victory over fellow League One promotion contenders Wycombe on March 15, having taken a brief 37-minute flight to the match.

The club operates at a different level to many of its competitors and is currently aiming for a third consecutive promotion thanks to the backing of owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Wrexham's financial power is reflected in the way the team travels to long-distance away matches, with the recent journey to Wycombe being an example of the lengths the two actors will go to ensure the comfort of their players.

However, Wrexham have been accused of hypocrisy by the Fossil Free Football campaign group for chartering a private jet just four days before club officials declared their commitment to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

Reynolds, alongside directors Humphrey Ker and Shaun Harvey, visited the UN's base in New York in March to pledge to observe sustainability practices and work to tackle climate change. Wrexham have not responded to the criticism, but star striker Paul Mullin previously revealed how flights to away games first became a regular occurrence for the team.

Mullin said Wrexham co-owner McElhenney's generosity played a key part in the arrangement when a royal visit to the Racecourse Ground delayed the club's travel plans for a game against Eastleigh in 2022-23. Rather than have the players face a five-hour coach journey for the National League fixture, the Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator decided to charter a flight.

Mullin claimed this gave them a competitive edge by allowing their bodies to be in peak condition for matches, helping them on their road to promotion from non-league football. Writing in his autobiography, My Wrexham Story, he also disclosed that air travel was only put on for journeys of more than two hours by road. A coach journey to Wycombe would have taken just over three hours each way.

"Thank goodness for Rob McElhenney," Mullin wrote. "He came up with the perfect answer: we'd shave hours off the day by flying down to Hampshire. A quick thirty minutes on a plane compared to five hours on a bus would make a massive difference to our preparation, not least because it’s obviously not good for elite sportspeople to be sat in one position all that time.

"The plan paid dividends when we won 2–0. Afterwards, a couple of people were on at me - 'Ask Rob if we can fly back as well!' It wasn't total laziness: we had another game on the Tuesday and flying back would massively aid our recovery. Rob not only said yes but came up with a deal: keep winning and we could fly to all our away games more than two hours away by road.

"He might not have counted on us then going on that twenty-eight-game unbeaten streak! When finally we were beaten at Halifax, a game we'd travelled to by road, it was all the proof we needed that coach travel was bad news and air transport was the way forward if we were going to fulfil our potential."

While Wrexham's players might be happy with the arrangement, it has been slammed by environmental campaigners after details of the flight to Wycombe became public. Investigations by Fossil Free Football found the aircraft, operated by Blue Islands, flew empty from Jersey to collect the team at Hawarden Airport, just north of Wrexham, before flying them to Oxford Airport, approximately 150 miles away.

The chartered aircraft subsequently returned to its base in the Channel Islands before making another trip to Oxford the next morning to transport the team up north and finally returning to Jersey. In total, the plane covered a distance of 1,155 miles in just over five hours of flight time, including four positioning flights.

Peter Crisp from Fossil Free Football said: "Football at all levels is threatened by increased rainfall and flooding directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels. There just can't be room in the sport for short haul, ultra polluting and totally avoidable flights.

"If fans can travel a few hours to a match by coach or train, then so can teams like Wrexham, especially when they are also talking about positive impact and sustainability at the United Nations."

Environmental experts say that short-haul flights are about 25 to 30 times more harmful to the environment than coach travel. Wrexham have a history of opting for short-haul flights, with BBC Sport reporting in 2023 that the team took 16 domestic flights, averaging 43 minutes of airtime each, during their victorious 2022-23 National League campaign.