Tom Brady Criticizes Wayne Rooney's Tenure at Birmingham City

Tom Brady Criticizes Wayne Rooney's Tenure at Birmingham City

Tom Brady Criticizes Wayne Rooney's Tenure at Birmingham City

NFL legend Tom Brady has expressed concerns about Wayne Rooney's approach during his time as manager of Birmingham City, where Brady holds a minority ownership stake. In an upcoming Amazon Prime documentary series, set to release on Friday, Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion, voices his apprehension to colleagues, stating, "I'm a little worried about our head coach's work ethic," while admitting, "I mean, I don't know, I don't have great instincts on that."

During the series, Brady also labels the Blues players as "lazy and entitled" following his visit to the club's training ground in November 2023. Conversations between the former quarterback and Rooney appear tense, with Rooney discussing cultural issues he perceives at the club, explaining, "Why they're playing in the Championship and not the Premier League is because... we've all passed a ball, kicked the ball and run, but it's a focus, concentrated for 90 minutes." Brady, observing a training session, remarks, "We've got a long road ahead."

Brady, widely regarded as the greatest player in NFL history, became a minority owner of Birmingham City in August 2023, following a takeover by Knighthead Capital Management LLC, co-founded by financier Tom Wagner. The club was relegated to League One in their first year under new ownership, experiencing seven managerial changes in ten months. Two months after Brady's arrival, manager John Eustace was replaced by Rooney, with the Blues positioned sixth in the Championship. However, the club's subsequent fall to 20th in the standings led to Rooney's dismissal after just 83 days. Rooney commented at the time that he did not feel 13 weeks was "sufficient to oversee the changes that were needed."

In the series, Blues fan Paul Collins speculates that Rooney's appointment was driven by the ownership's desire to attract attention by hiring "one of the most recognizable English footballers of the last generation." Collins questions, "What qualifies Wayne to manage Birmingham City? Nothing."

Brady reflects on the owners' challenging first season, recalling advice he received: "There was some good advice that I got that was like, 'listen, don't go in there and make these big, sweeping changes - you guys have time.' And of course, we make sweeping changes."

Relegation from the Championship at the end of the 2023-24 season meant Birmingham dropped out of English football's top two tiers for only the third time in their history. Brady attributes the failure to the players, stating, "Well, we've already changed the coach, so it's really the players because the coach doesn't go out there and put the ball in the goal. They were lazy, they were entitled, and when you're lazy and entitled, you don't have much of a chance to succeed. We've got to change all the people that are associated with losing, so I think this summer there's going to be a lot of people gone." That summer, the club invested £30m in transfers, an unprecedented amount for League One. The following year, Birmingham broke the Football League record for most points in a season, finishing top of League One with 111 points.

In a humorous moment from the series, Brady's manager Ben Rawitz jokes about the NFL legend struggling to find the club's Elite Performance and Innovation Centre on a map, saying, "That's the owner right there, he doesn't know where his training facility is," later comparing the facilities to a "high school." During another visit to the city, Brady amusingly asks a colleague, "What's the other team here?" and follows up by asking, "is Aston Villa in the Premier League?"

The series also draws comparisons to fellow Championship club Wrexham, which has seen three consecutive promotions since its £2m takeover by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in February 2021. Wagner dismisses the notion of comparing the two clubs, stating, "They've done a spectacular job at bringing attention to a small club. I think what we have here is a club that's already a very big club, and so, from our perspective, it's a bit different. The ambitions for us in the context of what we'll build is bigger than what they'll do at Wrexham." Wagner further emphasizes, "Our target's not Wrexham. Our target is to play Premier League football against Villa."

Topics

Related news