Tom Brady’s name has come off the ownership group of the club sitting at the top of English soccer’s second division.
Birmingham City announced on 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 Knighthead’s 2023 takeover.
Brady reportedly sold his shares and stepped down from the club’s advisory board. He had held a 3.3% stake and served on that board, alongside other roles.
His broadcasting workload had made it harder to give the club enough time, and he decided it was the right moment to leave, according to reports.
The club thanked him for three years of support in a statement posted on its website and said it intends to build on what he helped start, from the training ground to the surrounding community. “It was truly amazing to have someone with Tom’s experience and passion associated with the club,” the statement said.
What His Next Post Left Out
Brady made his first public comment on the exit in an Instagram post. “Being part of Birmingham City Football Club the last three years has been one of the most rewarding journeys of my life,” he wrote.
He added: “Most of all, thank you to the people of Birmingham. Your passion, your loyalty, and the way you show up for this club through every high and every hard day are what make it so special. I’ll always be rooting for your success. Keep Right On.”
Brady posted again on Nov. 10, the day after the club’s announcement, with a message drawn from his “199” newsletter. That post did not address Birmingham City and featured photos of him preparing to call Sunday’s NFL game. “But if I want to write a new chapter–the next one–all that work is in front of me, not behind me. And I embrace that work because the work IS the chapter,” he wrote.
Top of the Table Without Brady
Birmingham leads the Championship after 15 matches with 29 points, on a record of eight wins, five draws and two losses under manager Chris Davies. Middlesbrough and Stoke City sit level on points, with Birmingham ahead on goal difference.
The team moved top on Saturday, Nov. 7, beating Swansea City 2-1 — two days before the club confirmed Brady’s exit. Birmingham plays Stoke City next on Nov. 21, a meeting of two of the three clubs tied at the top.
Wagner Wants the Premier League
Tom Wagner, Birmingham’s chairman and the head of Knighthead, has made clear he wants the club in the Premier League. A planned new stadium in the city would hold 62,000 fans as part of Knighthead’s “Sports Quarter,” a 48-acre site in the east of Birmingham with a reported £3 billion earmarked and completion targeted for the early 2030s.
Brady’s other jobs are unchanged. He remains a minority owner and team advisor with the Las Vegas Raiders, calls games for Fox Sports under a deal that runs through 2032, and holds an ownership stake in the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces. On Sunday, Nov. 8, the day before the Birmingham announcement, he was in Foxborough, Mass., preparing to call the Patriots’ game against the Green Bay Packers.
From World Class Promises to League One
Brady’s route into English soccer ran through Wagner, his friend and business partner, and he bought in the summer that followed his retirement from the NFL after 23 seasons and seven Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Both sides pitched the role as a hands-on one. Wagner said at the time that Brady would chair the advisory board and work across the men’s, women’s and academy sides, with the stated aim of making Birmingham City a club the rest of soccer looked to on nutrition, health, wellness and recovery. The quarterback’s arrival, Wagner said, was a statement of intent, and the bar was being set at world class.
Brady appeared in a five-part Amazon Prime documentary about the takeover, “Built in Birmingham: Brady and the Blues.” The early Knighthead era was rough: the club hired Wayne Rooney as manager, he lasted less than three months in the 2023-24 season, and the campaign ended with Birmingham relegated to League One. Brady questioned Rooney’s work ethic in the docuseries, and Rooney later called the criticism "very unfair."
The relegation lasted one year. Birmingham won its way back to the Championship the following season, and it is now in front.
