“`html
Wayne Rooney’s tenure at Birmingham City lasted a mere 83 days.
NFL icon Tom Brady has voiced concerns regarding Wayne Rooney’s commitment during his time as Birmingham City’s manager, a club in which Brady holds a minority stake.
In an upcoming Amazon Prime documentary, scheduled for release on Friday, Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion, is seen telling colleagues: “I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic.” He further adds, “I mean, I don’t know, I don’t have great instincts on that.”
Brady, who also describes Blues players as “lazy and entitled” within the series, made these remarks about Rooney after visiting the club’s training facilities in November 2023.
Filmed interactions between the former quarterback and then-manager Rooney appear strained.
In one particular exchange, the former Everton and Manchester United striker shares his perceptions of the club’s cultural issues with his employer.
Rooney states, “The reason 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 requires focus, concentrated for 90 minutes.”
Following these remarks, Brady is filmed observing a training session, commenting: “We’ve got a long road ahead.”
The retired quarterback – widely regarded as one of the NFL’s all-time greatest players – acquired a minority ownership stake in the club in August 2023, subsequent to a takeover the previous month by Knighthead Capital Management LLC, co-founded by financier Tom Wagner.
The club faced relegation to League One during the first year under the new ownership, following a period that saw seven managerial changes in 10 months.
Two months after Brady’s arrival in 2023, manager John Eustace was controversially replaced by Rooney, despite the Blues holding sixth position in the Championship at the time.
However, with the club subsequently falling to 20th in the league standings, Rooney’s tenure lasted only 83 days at St Andrew’s.
Rooney stated at the time that he did not believe 13 weeks was “sufficient to oversee the changes that were needed.”
In the documentary series, Blues supporter Paul Collins suggests that the appointment was driven by the ownership’s desire to hire “one of the most recognisable English footballers of the last generation” in order to “put a load of eyes on Birmingham City.”
Collins questions: “What qualifies Wayne to manage Birmingham City? Nothing.”
Brady also reflects on the owners’ challenging first season.
He recounts: “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 marked only the third time in Birmingham’s history that they had fallen outside of English football’s top two divisions.
Brady attributes the season’s struggles to the players.
“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,” he states.
“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.”
Subsequently, the club invested £30m in transfers, an unprecedented sum for a League One club.
The following year, Birmingham broke the Football League record for most points in a season, securing the League One title with 111 points.
In one scene, while en route to Birmingham’s training ground, Brady’s manager Ben Rawitz jokes about the NFL legend struggling to locate the club’s Elite Performance and Innovation Centre on a map.
“That’s the owner right there, he doesn’t know where his training facility is,” Rawitz quips, later comparing the facilities to a “high school.”
In another scene, during a separate visit to the city, Brady inquires, “What’s the other team here?”, subsequently asking, “is Aston Villa in the Premier League?”.
Birmingham City v Wrexham: A star-studded fixture, at least off the pitch.
The series draws comparisons to fellow Championship club Wrexham, who have experienced three consecutive promotions since the Welsh club’s £2m takeover in February 2021 by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Wagner dismisses the notion that the two clubs should be compared.
“They’ve done a spectacular job at bringing attention to a small club,” he acknowledges.
“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.”
In a separate scene, he states: “Our target’s not Wrexham. Our target is to play Premier League football against Villa.”
Listen to the latest Football Daily podcast
Get football news sent straight to your phone
“`