Championship football club Birmingham City has reportedly acquired a 48-acre site from Birmingham City Council with a view to potentially building a new stadium.
The Birmingham Mail has reported that the club has reached an agreement with the council to assume control of a plot of land formerly occupied by the Wheels Park facility. The site is located in the Bordesley Green area of the city.
According to the report, Birmingham will seek to build a multi-sport “super stadium” on the site. Neither the council nor the club have commented on the matter. Birmingham has played at St. Andrew’s since 1906.
Birmingham is owned by US investment firm Knighthead Annuity & Life Assurance. In January, the firm furthered its investment in the club by announcing a multi-year stadium naming-rights deal that could be worth as much as £25.4m (€29.6m/$32.1m) over the initial three years.
The deal, described as the largest commercial agreement in the club’s history, officially renamed the stadium as St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park.
In June last year, the English Football League (EFL) approved Tom Wagner’s acquisition of a controlling 45.96% stake in City. Wagner, co-founder of New York-based Knighthead Capital Management, had earlier agreed to acquire a stake in the club and assume ownership of St. Andrew’s.
Wagner has highlighted improvements to St. Andrew’s as key priority, with the stadium having fallen into disrepair in recent years. In November, supporters returned to all areas of the stadium for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19 following the completion of remedial work on the Kop Lower stand.
Birmingham also has a deal in place with the European arm of US sports and entertainment company Oak View Group. The deal sees OVG work with the club to develop a long-term strategy to maximise the commercial value of St. Andrew’s.
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