Wrexham wasted timely Liverpool, Leicester City windfall in alarming fashion: View
The case of how the Danny Ward transfer money was spent will always haunt Wrexham fans, despite their newfound success.
It was during the summer of 2018 that Wrexham received a large windfall for one of its former youngsters in goalkeeper Danny Ward.
There was much excitement at the time as the Wales international, who came up through the club’s academy, was sold to Leicester City by Liverpool for a sum of £12.5m.
Ward left Wrexham for Anfield in early 2012 for an initial fee of £100,000 despite only making one appearance for his hometown club in a Welsh Cup tie against Airbus in December 2011.
According to reports, it was estimated that the Red Dragons gained as much as £2m from the deal between Liverpool and Leicester due to a 15 per cent sell-on clause in the keeper’s contract.
Bryan Hughes handed hefty budget
While the club’s manager when the transfer was made was former Wolves defender Sam Ricketts, the money did not fall into his hands due to the time taken for such transactions to be processed.
It went instead to ex-Wrexham midfielder Bryan Hughes, who was appointed to take charge in February 2019 following Ricketts’ departure to Shrewsbury and later that of Graham Barrow.
As an interesting coincidence, it was Hughes himself who was previously believed to have netted the club its largest transfer fee after joining Birmingham City in 1997 for a figure approaching £1m.
How fitting then that he should be the beneficiary of a sum which would surely provide a big boost in the North Wales side’s bid to finally gain promotion from the National League.
As reported by The Leader, at the start of the 2019/20 season, Hughes was working with a playing budget of more than £1.2m.
It was a significant amount for a club then under fan ownership, long before it had Hollywood millions to spend.
In fact, supporters dug deep on several occasions over the years to boost the war chest available to managers via ‘Build the Budget’ fundraising campaigns.
