Next up for Wrexham is world champion Chelsea.
While a place in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup is at stake when the teams face off at the Racecourse Ground on Saturday, for Wrexham it will be a timely gauge of just how “Premier League-ready” it is.
Speaking to industry experts last week, Wrexham CEO Michael Williamson said the Welsh club — owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney — would be ready for the top flight of English soccer when the time comes. Even as soon as next season, just three years after it was playing non-league.
“What we’ve proven is that with our culture we’re pretty damn good at being ready,” Williamson told the FT Business of Football Summit.
Even with celebrity owners, huge financial backing and a global reach through the fly-on-the-wall documentary series “Welcome to Wrexham,” it cannot be overstated just how remarkable the club's rise has been.
Back-to-back-to-back promotions have taken it from playing non-league games in a crumbling stadium to the second-tier Championship and in contention for the playoffs to the Premier League.
The prospect of playing the likes of Chelsea every week is not just the hope for Wrexham's owners but the mission.
“They said that from day one and everyone laughed at them,” Williamson said. “We know what we have to do. It’ll be really difficult but we can do it because we’ve proven that we can, not just survive when we get promoted, but that we can actually thrive.”
Wrexham's meteoric rise has meant it has constantly played catchup to try to keep pace with its on-field success. More than 60 players have been signed since the takeover was completed in 2021, with 16 joining last summer to build a squad capable of competing in a division with former Premier League champion Leicester and a host of clubs with very recent top flight experience.
Even still, the spending is nothing like that of England's top flight. Nathan Broadhead became Wrexham's record signing in August for a reported $10 million. Before him, Sam Smith cost a reported $2.7 million.
Compare that to Chelsea, which has spent close to $2 billion under American owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital since buying the club in 2022. That money helped Chelsea win the Club World Cup last year — but it has not come close to winning the Premier League and it could miss out on qualification to the Champions League this season.
Wrexham's spending is likely to have to increase significantly again to bridge the widening gap between the Premier League and the Championship, with promoted teams increasingly struggling to make the step up.
Last season, all three promoted teams — Leicester, Ipswich, Southampton — were relegated. The year before, Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton all failed to survive in their first season in the top flight.
“We’d have to look at a squad change and we’re definitely planning that,” Williamson said in the event of Wrexham securing a fourth straight promotion.
While player changes have been frequent, manager Phil Parkinson has been a constant and was recently told by McElhenney that he has a job for life.
His immediate focus is on an FA Cup upset against Chelsea.
“We’ll be going all out to produce a really good performance, and we’ll see where that takes us on the night,” he told the North Wales Chronicle. ”But we know we’ve got to respect Chelsea. What a squad of players they’ve got. They’ve spent billions over the last 10 years.
“They are Club World Cup champions — I don’t think we should forget that — so statistically we are playing the best club in the world.”
James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Wrexham's goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, left, celebrates with teammates after a penalty shootout at the end of the English FA Cup third round soccer match between Wrexham and Nottingham Forest in Wrexham, Wales, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — For years, Iran's theocratic government warned it would blanket the Middle East with missile and drone fire if it felt its existence was threatened.
Now, the Islamic Republic is doing just that.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched the war Saturday and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has unleashed thousands of drones and ballistic missiles targeting Israel, American military bases and embassies in the region, and energy facilities across the Persian Gulf. Iranian fire has even been directed over its borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Iran's basic strategy is to instill fear about the dangers of a widening war in hopes that allies of the U.S. will apply enough pressure to halt their campaign. A protracted conflict, along with American and Israeli casualties, could also work in Iran’s favor.
But the barrage-thy-neighbors strategy also could backfire.
Iran’s first priority is to emerge from the war with its state institutions intact, said Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“Iran is upping the costs for this U.S. military campaign and regionalizing it from the get-go, as they promised they would if America restarts the war again with Iran,” she said. The U.S. joined Israel last June in a 12-day war, targeting nuclear enrichment sites. Iran maintains its program is peaceful, though its officials had threatened to pursue a bomb while enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.
Iran's leaders believe that by inflicting casualties and disrupting energy production to drive up oil and gas prices, America's allies or an unsettled public back home will pressure U.S. President Donald Trump to ease back.
“The Iranians are banking on basically out-stomaching him, and exhausting him and his allies to the point where they would basically have a diplomatic off-ramp,” Geranmayeh said. Trump is unpredictable, Geranmayeh said, but for now he appears to be pressing for “unconditional surrender to his demands, rather than a negotiated settlement.”
The U.S. and Israel have carried out hundreds of airstrikes and inflicted heavy damage on Iranian government, military and nuclear targets. Despite being greatly outgunned, Iran has continued to fire ballistic missiles into Israel, killing 11 people and disrupting life for millions of Israelis. More have been killed in the Gulf Arab states, and the U.S.-Israeli campaign has killed 1,045 people in Iran.
After more than two years of war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli public appears to have little appetite for another lengthy round of fighting. Polls suggest the U.S. public is leery of a protracted conflict.
The American and Israeli onslaught came after failed U.S.-Iranian talks over Iran's nuclear program and the West's sanctions.
Trump said Monday his four objectives were to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.
The Iranian response has spared no one in the region — not even Oman, which mediated the latest round of nuclear talks and for decades has maintained a close relationship to Iran. In the 1970s, Iran's shah helped the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said put down a rebellion.
But now Oman has been dragged into the conflict. An Omani port and ships off its coast have been targeted by Iranian missiles. Oman's port at Duqm helped the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with pre-deployment logistics.
Saudi Arabia, which has maintained a detente with Tehran since 2023, also came in the crosshairs this week. Its Ras Tanura oil refinery has been repeatedly attacked and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh got hit by drones — an embarrassing moment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has worked to cultivate a close relationship with Trump.
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which also have close ties to Trump, have been repeatedly targeted, too.
There’s a grim math equation at play as the war goes on. Iran has a finite number of missiles and drones, just as the Gulf Arab states, the U.S. and Israel all have a limited number of interceptor missiles capable of downing the incoming fire.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that thousands of Iranian missiles and drones have been “intercepted and vaporized” during the war. The Israeli military says it has destroyed dozens of missile launchers.
From the American and Israeli side, targeting missiles and their launchers remains key. Both countries had to shoot down Iranian missiles during the war in June and multiple times in the Israel-Hamas war.
“In simple terms, we are focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the American military’s Central Command.
A senior Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Iran has several days’ worth of ballistic missiles if it continues firing at current rates, but it may hold some back to wage a longer campaign.
The Israeli military says there have been far fewer Iranian missiles launched in recent days as a result of the airstrikes — though warning sirens often wailed across Israel on Wednesday into Thursday.
Iran's strategy of trying to threaten energy security, drive a wedge between Gulf and Western states and raise costs is “backfiring,” said Hasan Alhasan, a Middle East expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“It’s driving and pushing the Gulf states into closer alignment with the United States,” he said.
“The Gulf states can’t simply sit idle and continue absorbing indefinite attacks to their critical infrastructure and to civilians in Gulf cities,” Alhasan said. They are probably trying to both acquire more weapons to intercept incoming fire and find ways to broker an end to the war, he said.
Iran’s foreign minister has suggested his country’s military units are now isolated and acting independently from any central government control, a possible excuse for Iran’s increasingly erratic fire.
“They are acting based on instructions — you know, general instructions — given to them in advance,” Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
But after a Wednesday phone call with Araghchi, Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, “categorically rejected” his assertion that Iranian missiles were only directed at American interests and not intended to target Qatar.
Keaten reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
Debris cover the site of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV headquarters after it was hit in an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A cleric leads a group of volunteers in prayer next to a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Large fire and plume of smoke is visible after, according to the authorities, debris of an Iranian intercepted drone hit the Fujairah oil facility, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
Officers from Israel's Home Front Command inspect a damaged apartment building after an Iranian missile strike in Petah Tikva, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
