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'I had three Zooms with Tom Brady at Birmingham City - my Sky Sports colleagues were wrong'
Gary Rowett has put his Sky Sports punditry pals straight about Tom Brady’s involvement in Birmingham City.
Rowett had a brief spell back at Blues as interim boss last season after Tony Mowbray was forced to step down for health reasons. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t prevent City sliding into the third tier for the first time in 30 years as owner Tom Wagner’s grand plans for the club suffered a setback.
Despite failing to keep Blues up, it was a spell Rowett reflects on fondly and he took a great deal from working with Wagner and Brady, even if it was only for a short period. Rowett also defended Brady after his Sky Sports colleagues questioned the NFL icon’s knowledge of English football.
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Speaking on the Business of Sport podcast, he said: “We sat in two or three Zooms with the owner, Tom Brady, not always about football.
"I think everyone has this misconception. I remember speaking to a few of the pundits on Sky. They were saying, ‘what does Tom Brady know about football?’
“But it wasn’t about that, it was about leadership, about high performance. There’s always something you can draw from someone who has been an absolute unicorn athlete, an outlier in his sport.”
Rowett described working with the ownership group as “brilliant”. He said: “Obviously there was a job to do but the experience of working with Tom Wagner, Tom Brady, all those guys, was fascinating. It was a snippet of where football’s going to go for certain clubs.”
He felt one aspect of the owners’ approach was unwise though, as the club battled relegation. Rowett explained: “I’m sure if you spoke to people like Tom Wagner, midway through a relegation battle, they’re talking about plans for a new stadium.
“This is the bigger picture and what the owners want to do. I felt as a manager sometimes that it perhaps wasn’t the right timing to be discussing that, when you’re trying to win games of football and the pressure’s on.
“But it felt like something was building. Regardless of the team going into League One, it felt like the club was now on the up with good owners with a clear vision and a clear ambition.”
