Wrexham owners Mac and Reynolds helped commentate‘Buildup and coverage of the game left a lot to be desired’
Swansea’s chief executive has said the club will raise concerns over television coverage of their all-Welsh affair against Wrexham with the English Football League (EFL), with Tom Gorringe saying the team owned by Hollywood stars Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds “were given priority at every opportunity”.
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Wrexham won the Championship match 2-0 on a night when Mac and Reynolds provided alternative commentary alongside the Sky presenter David Prutton, marketed as “Live from Wrexham with Rob & Ryan”. Sky Sports trailed the live commentary – which ran on one of its channels alongside the usual match coverage on its main platform – as “part of a first-of-its kind broadcast”.
Mac, who has just celebrated his fifth anniversary as Wrexham co-owner with Reynolds, later called being able to commentate on the game on 13 March as the “most rewarding professional experience of my entire life”.
But Swansea were unhappy with how they were treated in north Wales, with Gorringe saying the “buildup and coverage of the game itself left a lot to be desired on those particular scores”.
Writing in the programme for Swansea’s home game with Coventry on Saturday evening, Gorringe said: “We have the Sky Sports cameras in attendance once again, although hopefully coverage of this fixture will be more balanced than what we witnessed around our game at Wrexham last weekend.
“While I don’t think anyone would dispute that we want to continue to grow the profile of the EFL product, the means by which we do so should be balanced and impartial. In my view, the buildup to and coverage of the game itself left a lot to be desired on those particular scores.
“With the production being done by Rob and Ryan’s own production company, all of the guests and focus was on their team, there were celebrations with David Prutton – the face of Sky’s EFL coverage – and the advert for the commentary of the game failed to mention that we were playing at all.
“It felt to myself and a number of members of our staff that we were very much an afterthought and that our hosts were given priority at every opportunity, and as a club we would strongly suggest that greater critical thought is given to how these situations are handled moving forward. This is a position that I will discuss with the EFL next week.”
Sky has told BBC Wales that, contrary to Gorringe’s statement, it was responsible for the production of the Wrexham-Swansea coverage. The television company added that its match coverage was fair and balanced. The former Swansea captain Ashley Williams was one of their pundits, while their manager, Vítor Matos, was interviewed before and after the game, as was his opposite number, Phil Parkinson.
