Leeds United fans will love EFL response to Ryan Reynolds' LUFC & Wrexham claim

Peterborough United chairman Darragh MacAnthony has urged Wrexham owner Ryan Reynolds to ‘calm down’ amid claims they are a bigger international club than Leeds United.

Following their £2million takeover of Wrexham in 2020, Hollywood duo Rob McElhenney and Reynolds have enjoyed massive success on and off the pitch, with mega-money sponsorship deals, a successful documentary and promotion from the National League into League Two. Their presence has also fuelled a huge increase in coverage of the Welsh side in the media.

Wrexham believe they have the largest international following among the 72 EFL clubs but outspoken chairman MacAnthony insists the non-stop coverage is ‘nauseating’ and took aim at claims they are bigger than the likes of Leeds.

“Fair play to them, they bought in and came up with a project and they’ve managed to finance this project by selling documentaries, advertising and doing deals with skincare companies, drink companies where they’ve had to put very little of their own dough in,” MacAnthony told talkSPORT. “Anyone who comes in and has a couple of promotions and increases and grows their crowd – I saw their revenues the other day and it was £15-£20 million a year now as opposed to £5 million when they first came in.

“Anyone who does that is a successful person at what they do. They put some decent people in – I watched the Wrexham documentary and it was quite good, the first season and a half then peters out like a lot of sports documentaries do. The only thing that irritates me about the whole Wrexham thing isn’t Wrexham themselves – I have a lot of admiration for Wrexham, the owners, the people behind the scenes – it’s the media.

“You open a newspaper and there’s stuff about the Championship, League One and League Two, but every week there’s stuff about Wrexham and it’s nauseating. You get why they’re doing it because they want an American audience but at the end of the day there are 72 EFL clubs out there. They need to calm down thinking they’re bigger than Leeds or whoever.”