Wrexham AFC criticised for flying to League One Wycombe match
Wrexham AFC have come under fire after using a private jet to fly to and from a League One away game against promotion rivals Wycombe Wanderers. The plane, chartered from the Jersey, travelled a total of 1,178 miles (1,896km) to take them on a 37-minute flight instead of a three-hour coach journey for the match on 15 March. In the same month, the club's co-owner, actor Ryan Reynolds, pledged to the United Nations to "engage with and advocate" for sustainable goals aimed at making the sport more environmentally friendly. Wrexham have been approached for comment.
The team were only on the plane for about 250 miles out of the almost 1,200-mile total trip, with the flight taking them from Hawarden Airport in Flintshire to Oxford. The jet flew from Jersey to Hawarden to pick the team up on 14 March, before flying to Oxford and returning to Jersey.It did the return journey the following day. Wrexham won the match 1-0 and are currently three points ahead of their promotion rivals, having played a game more.
Wrexham took 16 flights domestic flights in their promotion season from the National League two years ago. Meanwhile, research from 2023 found Premier League clubs took 81 flights out of 100 games in a two-month period, with the shortest being 27 minutes.In striker Paul Mullin's book, My Wrexham Story, he said flights became a regular occurrence after a royal visit to the Racecourse Ground left the team facing a five-hour coach journey close to kick off time. He said co-owner Rob McElhenney said the team could fly to all away matches more than two hours away by road. Of Wrexham's 23 League One opponents, only eight are within a two-hour drive.
Criticism of the decision to fly to the match at Wycombe was posted on TikTok by campaign group Fossil Free Football, who said the club would have spent more than an hour on the road in trips to and from airports. Flights produce greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide (CO2) - from burning fuel. These contribute to global warming when released into the atmosphere.In 2023, private flights produced an estimated 15.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - the equivalent of 3.7 million petrol cars being driven over the course of a year, - according to research.Fossil Free Football said: "No-one want this problem to get worse at any level, from grassroots where 120,000 matches a season are already cancelled, to professional football where we saw things like Wimbledon pitch collapsing after a heavy storm last year."The video also called Reynolds hypocritical for visiting the UN in New York to join Football for the Goals, a UN initiative aimed at making the sport more sustainable.
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