Wayne Rooney hits back at Tom Brady: ‘I don’t think he really understood football’

Wayne Rooney has bitten back at Tom Brady over comments aired in a recent documentary depicting their short spell working together at Birmingham.

Brady, the legendary NFL quarterback and winner of seven Super Bowls, is heard during Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues, to question Rooney, when he was manager. “I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic,” Brady tells his business manager Ben Rawitz. “I mean, I don’t have great instincts on that.”

That follows a terse encounter between Rooney, the five-time Premier League winner and Manchester United record goalscorer, and Brady before they attend a meeting with the squad. Rooney was sacked after two wins in 15 matches. Brady was at Blues’ training complex in his capacity as a minority owner, and as an adviser to the majority owner, Tom Wagner.

“We’re trying to make this a world-class team,” Brady says in the introduction to a series that begins with Blues’ relegation from the Championship. Rooney, relaunching his own media career with a BBC-affiliated podcast, has had his say.

He said: “I think Tom came in once, which was the day before a game where the days are a little bit lighter anyway, and I don’t think he really understood football that well. But what he does understand is … he’s a hard worker – we know that.”

Rooney defended his short spell in the second city, saying: “When I went into Birmingham, they were in a mess really. Hence the fact that the players weren’t really the players who could take the club forward. You had Tony Mowbray, Gary Rowett after me, who also struggled as well.”

Brady is also heard to refer to Birmingham players from the 2023-24 relegation campaign as “lazy and entitled”.

The documentary’s brief meeting of the two appears a case of two former sportsmen taking their next career steps and struggling to find the other’s wavelength. Rooney said: “Football is not NFL – 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.” Brady, as a serial winner, would have played seasons spanning from September to February.

While last season Rooney was briefly the manager at Plymouth, Blues, after a summer of heavy spending, were promoted under Chris Davies as champions, collecting a record 111 points. Rooney was happy to offer credit for that revival.

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“Listen, I respect Tom Brady massively,” he said. “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.”

Birmingham were bought out by the Wagner-led consortium Knighthead Capital Management in the summer of 2023 and Brady became a shareholder two months later.

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