Controversial ex-Leeds United boss finally joins Wrexham thanks to EFL loophole

19 December 2023 , 12:45

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Shaun Harvey works closely with Ryan Reynolds at Wrexham (Image: Matthew Ashton/Getty Images)

Shaun Harvey has become a director at Wrexham after playing a key role in Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds' time at the club.

Harvey has been promoted from his role as special advisor to the Hollywood duo, despite having been chief executive of both Bradford and Leeds when the clubs went into administration. The 53-year-old has played a prominent role at Wrexham and appears regularly in the Welcome to Wrexham documentary, in which he is seen working closely with McElhenney and Reynolds.

But he remains a controversial character to many football fans due to his roles at previous clubs. He has a lot of experience in the game, having started out in the early 1990s at non-League club Farsley Celtic in West Yorkshire. He moved on to work at Scarborough and then followed chairman Geoffrey Richmond to Bradford, where he spent 10 years as the club’s chief executive.

His time at Bradford included the high point of the club’s promotion to the Premier League in 1999, but also one of its lowest when it collapsed into administration in 2002 following relegation. Bradford only narrowly avoided liquidation, after most of its assets, including the stadium and players, had effectively been mortgaged. The club owed around £36million and was later put back into administration in 2004 after defaulting on payments.

Harvey moved on to Leeds, where he spent nine years as chief executive and worked under chairman Ken Bates. He once again oversaw a period of administration, with Leeds dropping into League One in May 2007 after taking a 10-point penalty because they owed around £35m, including £7m unpaid taxes.

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At the time Leeds was owned via an offshore company in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. Harvey told a parliamentary select committee inquiry in 2011 that he did not know who the club's owners were. The unnamed owners sold the club to Bates, whose company was also registered in a tax haven.

Harvey landed on his feet, becoming chief executive of the Football League in 2011 – a role that he held for eight years before starting a consultancy business, which led him to Wrexham. He was enlisted by an investment bank working on behalf of McElhenney and Reynolds in 2020 and, via executive director Humphrey Ker, ended up using his expertise to conduct business on their behalf.

Shaun Harvey (middle right) pictured with (from left to right) Ryan Reynolds, Humphrey Ker, Fleur Robinson, Les Reed and Rob McElhenney (Matthew Ashton/Getty Images)

Despite being in charge of two different clubs that went into administration, he has now been allowed to become a director at Wrexham due to a loophole in the Football League’s rules. Bradford’s period of administration came in 2002, two years before the cut-off date in the directorship rules.

The EFL website states people are only prevented from joining the board of directors if “they have been a director of a football club which has suffered two insolvency events past June 2004 or separate football clubs which have each suffered an insolvency event past June 2004.”

Wrexham submitted the filing to Companies House to add Harvey to the board of directors on December 18. He joins McElhenney, Reynolds and Ker on the board.

Felix Keith