David Beckham and Gary Neville completed the takeover of Salford City this month, but their spending will be vastly different from the amounts Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds has put into his club
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Sport
09:21, 24 May 2025
David Beckham and Gary Neville
David Beckham and Gary Neville won't be so free-spending as Ryan Reynolds
(Image: Dave Winter/Icon Sport)
Gary Neville has admitted that his and David Beckham's approach as Salford City owners will be different from that of Wrexham's high-spending duo Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
The iconic Manchester United defender-turned-pundit completed a takeover of the League Two side earlier in May alongside Beckham as part of a new consortium that includes banker and LTA chair Lord Mervyn Davies and businessman Declan Kelly.
Neville, alongside other Class of '92 icons Paul Scholes, Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt, arrived at the club in 2014 and held stakes, and were joined by Beckham and billionaire Paul Lim in 2019. However, a new ownership group has bought them out after Lim's departure last summer, though the collective of other ex-Red Devils will still be involved with the club "across technical, football, commercial, recruitment and the SCFC foundation."
Wrexham were not long ago battling it out against the Ammies in the fourth division after their meteoric rise under the stewardship of Hollywood star Reynolds and fellow actor McElhenney, but now find themselves Championship-bound. This has infamously come after a heavy injection of cash from their owners, who took over in 2021, though Neville has not promised such purpose or capital supply when it comes to his venture.
"Me and Becks [David Beckham] decided that we would put money in for the next four or five years, which is a commitment we've all made. There's been quite a lot of money been promised over the next four years," admitted Neville, speaking on The Overlap Fan Debate, brought to you by Sky Bet.
"[But] we won't change the budget, and to reverse out of the model we already have, you need two or three years. You can't just go from investing to becoming sustainable – you've got players' contracts for three years, and you've generally got a model that you've built which you can't get away from.
Paul Scholes, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and Gary Neville attend the premiere of "The Class Of 92" at Odeon West End. (Photo by rune hellestad/Corbis via Getty Images)
Beckham and Neville bought out the 'Class of 92' stars
"I think it's very different from Wrexham and Birmingham, where you're talking about hundreds of millions going into those clubs, particularly Birmingham. That's not what we're looking to do with Salford."
Both Reynolds and McElhenney completed their takeover of the then-National League side for just £2million four years ago. However, this investment has since snowballed as the ambitious pair sought to raise their club through the English football pyramid, and did so.
They were promoted to League Two in 2023 and League One in 2024, and now, in 2025, they'll grace the Championship after finishing second in an automatic promotion place behind Birmingham City.
The Blues are another club that has seen significant investment from new, determined North American owners. Financier Tom Wagner, co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management, fronted a 2023 takeover for US-based Shelby Companies Limited and now acts as chairman, with NFL icon Tom Brady a co-owner.
Reynolds and McElhenney
Reynolds and McElhenney have invested heavily in Wrexham and it has paid off
While Birmingham broke countless transfer records with their summer spending in 2024, including the £15m signing of Fulham striker Jay Stansfield, smashing the previous League One record transfer by roughly £12m, Neville and Beckham's Salford journey will not be one of such extravagance.
"We want it to be a good football project," continued Neville. "The money we spent on our football club, we could have easily bought a League One club. The reason we didn't is that we wanted to build a football club from scratch. We had 100 fans at the time, Salford.
"Every fan that comes to Salford we respect enormously, but they're there because of the things that actually we've done in the last 10 years, which is a great position as owners to be in.
"We can't be accused of lacking spirit or fight or not putting money where our mouth is. We can never be accused of that sulphur because we didn't. We haven't got 10,000 fans that have been there for a long time that have an opinion that's based on the history."
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