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Blues owner challenges Government on stadium plans

The US owner of Birmingham City football club has said the UK can unlock a wave of inbound investment “incredibly quickly” if the government makes tangible progress on its pledge to speed up planning approvals. Tom Wagner, co-founder of Knighthead Capital, told the Financial Times that Britain’s record of under-investment and slow growth could be turned around if Labour made good on its vow to remove obstacles to development.

 “There are lots of projects that we are looking at in the UK that we’d love to pursue if the process can be made easier,” he said. “And we’re not the only ones. If things change by just a small amount, there’ll be a lot of capital inflow and a lot of excess growth.”

Knighthead has acquired more than 60 acres of land around Birmingham City’s stadium since taking control of the League One team in 2023. The New York-based hedge fund plans to build a new 60,000-seat venue as part of a large £3bn regeneration project involving housing, retail and entertainment space in one of the UK’s poorest neighbourhoods.

The firm manages about $9bn and has yet to submit formal planning applications for the project, which hinges on local authorities agreeing to set up new transport links. A proposed extension of Birmingham’s tram network through the area has been repeatedly delayed over several years.

Wagner, a former Goldman Sachs distressed debt trader, said Birmingham city council’s financial woes — it was declared bankrupt last year and forced to make drastic cuts to spending — had “very little” impact on Knighthead’s plans so far, and the firm was continuing to buy up land in an area just over a mile away from the city centre. “We’re hearing all the right things in our conversations. What we need to see now is a bit more action,” he told the Pink ‘Un, adding that he wanted to see real progress this calendar year on the potential extension of the city’s Metro tramline to the site of the proposed new stadium.

The team are still getting average attendances at home games of more than 26,000, higher than several Premier League sides, while former NFL star Tom Brady is now an adviser and shareholder at the club. Wagner said the goal was to take Birmingham City back to the Premier League and stay there for a “long period of time”, and in the process rekindle the fierce local rivalry with Aston Villa. “It’s an incredibly ambitious and probably a bit cocky thing to say, but, why bother if that’s not the objective?”

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