Revealed: How Man City left Tom Brady ‘blown away’ as NFL legend sets Birmingham challenge of matching Premier League champions

It would be unrealistic to expect the Blues to start chasing down the current kings of Europe on the field, but ambitious plans are being drawn up at St Andrew’s. Wayne Rooney is struggling to deliver on those in his role as head coach at present, but Birmingham are aiming high.

They now have NFL legend Brady – who has seven Super Bowl rings to his name – on board as an investor, and during his recent visit to the United Kingdom a trip to the Etihad Stadium was taken in. The former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers star was impressed by what he saw, with City now boasting a 53,000-seater stadium, state-of-the-art training facilities and their academy system all on one site.

Birmingham chief executive Garry Cook, who previously filled a similar role in Manchester, has told BirminghamLive of Brady’s grand vision: “We went to see another Premier League football club and look at all their facilities. It was one I was involved in previously and they have built an academy and a training centre, which is attached to the stadium, which is absolutely magnificent and Tom Brady was blown away. His first question is: ‘How do we get this? How do we make this happen?’ And his questions during the game: ‘How do we get better? What are the challenges we face?’ I think that’s what an advisory board should be doing, they should be challenging the executive, challenging the board, because they come from a place of knowledge. And if you have won seven NFL rings, you have probably got some knowledge on how the body performs at the highest level.”

Birmingham have slipped into the bottom-half of the Championship table, meaning that they are currently closer to the relegation zone than the play-off places, but Brady and Co are determined to build and there may be movement in the West Midlands during the January transfer window.