Birmingham City FC announced on Monday that Tom Brady is no longer part of the club. The statement went up on the club’s website and thanked him for three years of involvement. According to Page Six, the split was far less friendly than that statement suggests.
Birmingham City FC Confirms Tom Brady’s Departure
Monday’s announcement on the club’s website was warm.
Birmingham City FC expressed its “sincere gratitude” to Brady and praised his experience and passion. It said it would keep building on that foundation, from the training ground to the local community.
Brady has not described the exit as a falling out. After Page Six reached out for comment, he posted on Instagram thanking the players and coach Chris Davies, calling his three years with the club rewarding.
Page Six tells a different story, through one unnamed source familiar with the situation. Neither Brady nor the club has publicly confirmed any of it.
Brady’s Support for the Club Diminished Over Time
Brady joined as a minority investor and chairman of the advisory board in 2023, months after he retired from the NFL. His launch video leaned on one idea. He admitted he had a lot to learn about football but said he knew a few things about winning.
Early on, according to the Page Six source, he showed up.
He went to games, promoted the club on social media and did press for the season.
Then, the source said, “he completely checked out.”
Public partnerships rarely end in one moment. They thin out. Fewer appearances, fewer posts, less press, until a website statement makes official what had been obvious inside the building for a while. Brady’s Instagram thank-you and the source’s account describe the same three years from opposite ends.
Criticism of Team’s Work Ethic and Performance
Wayne Rooney is where the source places the turn. Birmingham City FC hired him as head coach nearly eight weeks after Brady’s appointment. Rooney lasted 83 days, and the source told Page Six that Brady questioned his work ethic.
Brady had already said as much on camera. In the 2025 documentary Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues, he made the work ethic remark about Rooney and called the 2023-24 squad “lazy and entitled.”
Brady built his reputation on the work done when nobody is watching.
He said exactly that in his launch video. A man who measures everyone by effort tends to notice fast when he thinks others are coasting, and he tends to say it out loud. Those words, delivered in a documentary about the club, are hard to take back.
Brady’s Shift in Priorities Raised Concerns
Fashion beat football, according to the Page Six source.
Brady would fly to New York and walk in a Gucci runway show for $180,000, the source said, but he would not go to Birmingham City games.
Equity was the point of contention. The club gave him a stake and expected support in return, according to the source. That small stake would still be worth several million dollars, the source said, and he was doing nothing for it.
So the accusation runs both ways. Brady, on record, called the players lazy. The source, off record, says Brady stopped showing up. Each side appears to have felt the other was not putting in the work, and neither seems to have said so directly until it ended.
Brady has not responded to the specific claims about Rooney, the games or the runway show. The club has said nothing beyond its statement. What happens to his equity has not been made public.
Sources: Page Six
