Emmanuel Petit has lauded the impact of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at Wrexham AFC, attributing the club’s impressive resurgence to the Hollywood duo’s leadership. Since their takeover in 2020, the celebrity co-owners have steered the Welsh outfit to two successive promotions, elevating them from relative obscurity to global fame.

Now a force in League One after two decades, Wrexham, guided by Phil Parkinson, are thriving and currently sit second in the league. Speaking to Prime Casino, the former Arsenal and Chelsea star didn’t shy away from praising their achievements, and he drew comparisons with the recent changes at his old stomping ground, Stamford Bridge.

“Wrexham’s owners are in a completely different world to Chelsea’s owners,” said Petit. The Frenchman also shared his personal admiration for Reynolds – not only as an actor but now as a football club owner, alongside McElhenney.

He said: “I’m a huge fan of Ryan Reynolds as an actor and a person, but also as a club owner now. He has good values alongside Rob McElhenney, and they’ve already had two promotions and are even competing to get into the Championship thanks to them.

“They are doing things properly, step by step; they have the money and the ambition; it’s a dream for their fans, and I’m actually quite jealous! They have done great things already, and the fans just look delighted. Maybe one day they will sell the club if they get to the Premier League, but it’s been a great story so far.”

The Dragons are holding firm in the coveted automatic promotion spot in League One after eight games, with their latest outing ending in a goalless draw against Leyton Orient. The Wrexham head coach remained positive about the result away from home.

Parkinson said: “I don’t think you can ever devalue a point on your travels. It is a great point for us with their recent form. Orient have had a really good run – they beat Stockport, I came down on Tuesday and they were really good against Peterborough – and they are a decent team.

“They finished in the top half of this division last year but we stayed in there. On your travels, you have got to be resilient. At times, we could have got that extra pass in just to take the sting out of them because when we started doing that, we stretched the pitch and we really looked like the team who could go and win the game.”