English soccer superstar and former Birmingham City F.C. manager Wayne Rooney clapped back at the team’s part-owner and former NFL superstar Tom Brady, saying that the seven-time Super Bowl champion’s criticism of his work ethic was “unfair.”
“I think it was a very unfair comment,” he said in an upcoming segment of The Wayne Rooney Show. “When I went into Birmingham, he was in a mess really, hence the fact that I went in, the players weren’t really the players who could take the club forward, and we knew that.”
Tom Brady openly criticized Wayne Rooney and the team’s players while discussing the club in the Amazon Prime documentary “Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues.”
“I’m a little worried about our head coach’s [Rooney’s] work ethic,” Brady said in the documentary released August 1st. “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… They were lazy. They were entitled. And when you’re lazy and entitled, you don’t have much of a chance to succeed.”
After being hired as the team’s manager on October 11th, 2023, Rooney was fired less than four months later on January 2nd, 2024. He was only able to lead the Blues to two wins in 15 matches.
“I think Tom came in once, which was the day before a game, where the day is a little bit lighter anyway,” Rooney said. “I don’t think he really understood football that well at the time. Maybe he does now… But what he does understand is, you know, he’s a hard worker. We know that.”
Rooney went on to say that he was “disappointed” by Brady’s comments.
“Football is not NFL,” Rooney explained. “NFL works for three months a year. Players do need rest as well, so I think he’s very unfair, the way he’s come out and portrayed that.”
Even though he expressed disappointment with the way Brady spoke about him and his players, Rooney said that it was “nothing too serious.”
“Listen, I respect Tom Brady massively,” Rooney concluded. “He’s one of the greatest, if not the greatest, athletes of all time, and Birmingham do look like they’re getting it right now, which is good. And I think what they have done is got the players out that they needed to get out.”
Since Wayne Rooney’s firing, the Blues have recorded 45 wins, 16 losses, and 15 draws across all competitions. Also, Birmingham City F.C. was promoted from League One to the second-tier EFL Championship league.
