Campobasso FC co-owners Mark Consuelos and Matt Rizzetta would like to organise a Hollywood soccer derby against Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhennie’s Wrexham.
Campobasso have been called by some sections of the media as the ‘Wrexham of Italy’ due to their own ownership’s links to America and Hollywood.
Two of the co-owners of Campobasso are actors and Hollywood power couple Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa, who co-host the ‘Live with Kelly and Mark’ chat show in the United States.
In late summer 2022, Campobasso FC was bought by Matt Rizzetta’s New York-based holding company North Sixth Group and an investment group backed by American actors and talk show hosts Mark Consuelos and his wife Kelly Ripa.
Like Wrexham, Campobasso started in the fifth tier and have enjoyed something of a cinderella-like story.
Buying the club eight days before the season started, Campobasso had no coach, no players, no CEO, no sporting director and, according to Rizzetta, had “mushrooms growing out of the pitch.”
Despite this, Campobasso won the league with the best goal difference in all of Italy, and are now on course for successive promotions into Serie C.
Asked if they would organise a friendly against Wrexham, who are now in League 2 in the English football pyramid, Consuelos and Rizzetta responded positively.
“I would do that in a second. I think I should reach out to those guys and make the offer, “Consuelos told The Italian Football Podcast.
“Hopefully they get promoted and we get promoted.
“I agree [it would be a commercial hit]. We should do it. I think it’s a great idea.”
Rizzetta, Campbasso FC’s chairman added: “Mark and I were talking about this yesterday and he said ‘Let’s do it, but we have to win’. We are in it to win it.”
It was then put to Consuelos and Rizzetta that to have a better chance of winning, they should organise the match in Italy during the searing August temperatures as Wrexham’s Welsh players would struggle to cope with the heat.
“We could do it in Italy, or in Miami or Florida [for the heat], “laughed Consuelos, who starred in All My Children, Riverdale and Queen of the South.
Consuelos went on to hail the work of actors Reynolds and McElhenney at Wrexham.
“I think what those guys have done, not only for Wrexham but also for the awareness of how European football works, I think they have done a great job,” he said.
“You can also thank Ted Lasso, but most Americans had no idea about promotion and relegation, and what that meant. And now they do.
“Campobasso and Wrexham are different in a number of ways. We are 100 per cent American-Italian owned so we all have roots in Italy.
“We definitely know the cakes are better in Italy than Wales, but I think there are similarities with the people. It is a hard-working blue-collared region.”
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