Tom Brady has let go of his stake in Birmingham City just as the club reached the top of the English Championship.
Birmingham City announced Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, that Brady, 49, is no longer part of its ownership group, three years after he bought a minority share in the second-division club as part of the Knighthead group’s 2023 takeover. The club did not say why he left.
“It was truly amazing to have someone with Tom’s experience and passion associated with the club,” the club said in a statement on its website, thanking him for three years of support and adding that it intends to build on what he helped start, from the training ground to the surrounding community.
Brady held a 3.3 percent stake and served on the club’s advisory board alongside other roles.
The Friend Who Brought Him In
The route into English soccer ran through Tom Wagner, Birmingham’s chairman and the head of Knighthead, who is Brady’s friend and business partner. Brady bought in during the summer that followed his retirement from the NFL, closing a 23-season career that brought him seven Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
His role was pitched as hands-on. Brady would chair the advisory board and work across the men’s, women’s and academy sides, Wagner said at the time, with a stated aim of turning Birmingham City into a club the rest of soccer looked to on nutrition, health, wellness and recovery. He described the quarterback’s arrival as a statement of intent, and said the bar was being set at world class.
Brady also appeared in a five-part Amazon Prime documentary about the takeover, “Built in Birmingham: Brady and the Blues.”
What Brady Said About Rooney
The early stretch of the Knighthead era was rough. Wayne Rooney, hired as manager, lasted less than three months in the 2023-24 season, which ended with Birmingham relegated to League One. In the docuseries, Brady questioned Rooney’s work ethic. Rooney later called the criticism “very unfair.”
The drop lasted one year. Birmingham won its way back to the Championship the following season, and now sits in front.
Wagner Still Wants the Premier League
Birmingham leads the Championship after 15 matches with 29 points — eight wins, five draws and two losses. Middlesbrough and Stoke City are level on points, and Birmingham is ahead on goal difference. The side managed by Chris Davies moved top on Saturday, Nov. 7, by beating Swansea City 2-1, two days before the club confirmed Brady’s exit.
The ambitions stretch past this table. Wagner has made clear he wants the club in the Premier League, and the club is planning a new stadium in Birmingham that would hold 62,000 fans.
Birmingham’s next match is against Stoke City on Nov. 21, a meeting of two of the three clubs tied at the top.
Brady’s other jobs are unchanged. He remains a minority owner and team advisor for the Las Vegas Raiders, and he calls games for Fox Sports on a deal that runs through 2032. On Sunday, Nov. 8, the day before Birmingham announced that he was gone, he was in Foxborough, Mass., preparing to call the Patriots’ game against the Green Bay Packers.