Former NFL star Tom Brady has become a minority owner of Sky Bet Championship club Birmingham. The seven-time Super Bowl champion, recognised as one of the sporting greats, has partnered with the club’s holding company Knighthead Capital Management LLC and becomes chairman of a new advisory board. The club say Brady will “apply his extensive leadership experience and expertise across several components of the club, including working alongside the sports science department to advise on health, nutrition, wellness, and recovery systems and programs”. He said on the club’s official website: “Birmingham is an iconic club with so much history and passion and to be part of the Blues is a real honour for me. “BCFC is built on teamwork and determination and I’m excited to work alongside the board, management and players to make our second-city club second to none. “I’ve been part of some amazing teams in my day, and I’m looking forward to applying my perspective to create that same success here in Birmingham.” Brady has partnered up with Knighthead Capital on several other ventures and new Blues chairman Tom Wagner is looking forward to Brady’s “direct impact”. He said: “Tom Brady joining the Birmingham team is a statement of intent. We are setting the bar at world class. “Tom is both investing and committing his time and extensive expertise. As chair of the advisory board Tom will have a direct impact on the club. The men’s, women’s, and academy teams are going to benefit from the knowledge. “The goal that Tom has committed to own is to make Birmingham a respected leader in nutrition, health, wellness, and recovery across the world of football. “A commitment to Blues fans was made on Monday May 8 2023, to add experts from the world of sport and football to the team, putting in place the building blocks for future success. With Garry Cook as CEO, Hope Powell as women’s technical director and now Tom Brady we are off to a fast start. “Success does not come overnight. It takes time. But when you have great leaders in place everything becomes possible.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Football rumours: Manchester United enter race to sign Southampton’s Romeo Lavia On this day 2014: Lizzie Armitstead and Geraint Thomas celebrate road race gold Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus to miss start of season after knee surgery

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Terence Crawford's ring gear has been revealed ahead of his titanic bout with Errol Spence Jr this Saturday. Spence likes to refer to himself as the "Big Fish", and Crawford is taking no prisoners with his outfit. The ring gear features hooks and other fishing-related imagery. “I was able to do a lot of research into deep-sea fishing, the fabrics and hardware they use, and I implement that into the design", said Imtayaz Qassim of Bespoke Boxing, where Crawford’s outfit was designed and created. The two professional boxers are set to clash to crown an undisputed welterweight champion in their match. These two Americans are both currently unbeaten, but Crawford's WBO belt is on the line, as are Spence's WBC, WBA and IBF titles. Read More Moment Biden forgets to sign executive order in Maine Distressing moment dachshund stolen from Essex home by masked thief Driver Snapchats speeding at 80mph before killing passenger in crash

The first press conference to promote KSI’s fight against Tommy Fury in October descended into chaos on Tuesday, when Tommy’s father John Fury fumed at the “antics” on-stage and flipped a number of tables in anger – but one UFC fighter believes Fury should now “follow it up” and “smack someone”. The comments from Darren Till, a British mixed martial artist with an 18-5 win/loss record, come as the “absolute horse s***” event also saw Dillon Danis walk on wearing a Toy Story alien hat (in reference to Logan Paul’s infamous 2017 ‘suicide forest’ video) and Paul bring out a birthday cake for his rival depicting a bloodied Danis on the canvas. Till told gambling website SafeBettingSites: “The press conference was everything we expected: cringeworthy and embarrassing. “I thought Tommy and Dillon came across better than I expected. John’s John isn’t he? He likes to make a kerfuffle and do nothing about it, so what can you say? “It’s big John Fury! We all have to love him.” The UFC middleweight, who has been filmed sparring with Tyson Fury in the past, added: “Obviously I'm mates with Tyson and the Fury family and they’re a good bunch but how many outbursts can you have without actually doing something? “Now it’s time for him to follow it up and have an outburst and then smack someone!” In further surprising remarks from the fighter, Till claimed Danis – who had to pull out of a fight against KSI earlier this year – “100 per cent” won’t show up for his fight against Paul on 14 October. “He’s not going to take the fight, I’m sure of that, but I’m ready to step in any time and they can contact me or my management. All the details are on Twitter [X].” And then, in comments which will likely irritate KSI, Till noted the YouTuber did “look a little bit scared” during his face-off against Tommy Fury and that “Jake Paul’s probably the only guy who’s beating any real fighters at the moment”. While KSI co-founded Prime with former boxing opponent Logan, the YouTuber has had a long-running feud with Jake ever since he defeated content creator Joe Weller in 2018 for his first fight and called out the “It’s Everyday Bro” rapper in an interview afterwards. After Jake Paul took on Tommy Fury himself in a boxing match earlier this year, and secured his first loss, KSI released a video in which he said, while bursting out laughing: “They said you can’t beat a professional fighter, and they were right! You couldn’t!” Previous opponents for the younger Paul brother have included former basketball player Nate Robinson, ex-MMA star Ben Askren and former UFC champion Tyron Woodley. While KSI claimed during Tuesday’s press conference that “people are going to look at me differently” if he is victorious, Tommy Fury insisted “YouTube boxing will be done” if he defeats the rapper. However, Till believes the form of boxing is “here to stay”. “Jake’s at the forefront and Tommy’s already beaten him, although it was a close fight. I think influencer boxing is here to stay and we just have to make do with it because it's where the money is,” he said. KSI and Logan Paul take on Tommy Fury and Dillon Danis respectively on 14 October in Manchester. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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There were many moments that Sir Bob Murray could point to as illustrating how much football has changed, but one stands out for what he feels was a lack of basic decency. “My wife used to go to the boardroom at Chelsea, and they would thoroughly search her handbag,” he says. “She’s the woman married to the chairman of Sunderland.” The reason for that was out of the rigorous security concerns for Roman Abramovich, an ownership that Murray declares himself “personally diametrically against”. The 77-year-old even argues in his new book, I’d Do It All Again, that the entire issue of modern sportswashing “might have started with Abramovich picking up 20 trophies”. The deeper point is how some of football’s more dignified traditions, such as decency to rival clubs, were cast aside because of far loftier geopolitical concerns. Abramovich was a billionaire with a huge security detail, so that superseded the rest of the game. There is an obvious contrast with a great football figure that has been so celebrated this week, as Murray recounts in his book. The former accountant had taken his 10-year-old son James to see Sunderland’s match at Old Trafford, where Sir Bobby Charlton arranged for him to have his photo taken with the Champions League trophy. “When we played them at the Stadium of Light in the return fixture six months later, Sir Bobby had remembered the photo and handed James the picture. I was very touched by that; he’d showed great kindness and thought. Sir Bobby and his wife, Norma, always treated Sue and me like royalty at Old Trafford. In return, I always made sure I gave him some ham and pease pudding and stottie cake to take home whenever he came to our home games.” While so many of Murray’s stories raise a smile in the same way, it is very quickly apparent on talking to him about the book that this is no mere folksy look at what football used to be. It is about what the game is supposed to be, and what it represents. Drawing on his experience from 20 years as chairman of Sunderland, and having taken them up to the Premier League, Murray feels it is necessary to address the most complicated of themes. “Sportswashing” and the game’s many financial issues come up a lot, as he believes all of this is so damagingly moving the sport away from the community core it is supposed to be about. That ethos is visible in Sunderland’s Stadium of Light itself – with the financially sustainable way it was built seeing Murray brought into the St George’s Park and Wembley projects by the FA – as well as his aims for the book. He has insisted that 100 per cent of the cover prices goes to the Foundation of Light, the club-associated charity he set up “to use the power of football to invest in the communities we serve and to improve the education, health, wellbeing and happiness of people, no matter who they are”. It can be purchased at www.sirbobmurraybook.com. A core of the book of course covers Sunderland’s fortunes, from Roy Keane and the Niall Quinn-led takeover by Drumaville to Peter Reid’s transfers and tribulations, as well as the simple joy of having Kevin Phillips repeatedly lash the ball in after a Quinn knock-down. “It's the pace that things change,” Murray laments. “I think people don't realise it. This league is only 30 years old, it's in its infancy and yet... in 2000 I had the Golden Boot of Europe in Kevin Phillips. That was a wonderful thing to have, a lad that wanted to stay at Sunderland, that was 23 years ago.” It feels impossible now, because of how football’s economic infrastructure has been allowed to change. “It's just accelerating, we're just at the beginning of this journey... it's not going to get any better. We don't have any political leadership on it.” There is naturally a lot of discussion about Sunderland’s greatest rivals. While Murray is highly critical of the Public Investment Fund ownership of Newcastle United, and what it all represents, he believes the path to that point is instructive. He points to a period where both clubs reached agreements with broadcasters. “Where we’d created new shares, Newcastle United did a media deal of their own by selling existing shares to rivals NTL. The Newcastle directors received a lot more money – around £15m for themselves. The difference was it went straight into their pockets, while we took a share dilution so that ours could go straight into building and funding the Academy of Light. (We created new shares, so that the company – the club – got the money; Newcastle sold existing shares so that the directors got the money; then four years later the club bought some more Hall family shares, bringing the Hall income from Newcastle United to £20m. Add in salary packages and dividends paid to all shareholders and you’re looking at £36m to the Halls and £8m to Freddy Shepherd. And this was all before the sale to [Mike] Ashley.) “The receipts from the public flotation of Sunderland AFC all went to pay for the Stadium of Light and the Academy of Light. The receipts from the public flotation of Newcastle United helped pay back the Hall family loans. Sky had paid vast premiums to what the shares were really worth – but all the money went on the Academy of Light, and we had no debt. What do I think? I think we put the club first. Hall and Shepherd’s legacy to Newcastle was to get the highest price. That’s why they had 10 years of Mike Ashley. Now they’re owned by a Saudi. That’s your legacy…” While some would no doubt accuse Murray of jealousy or all the usual claims, that would be to completely misunderstand his perspective. This isn’t just about competing at any cost. It’s about creating something sustainable for the community. “It’s the Newcastle supporters I feel really sad for, they’ve got great tradition and pedigree, great supporters, very passionate, love their club, I'm concerned about them really. That’s what I’m concerned about. I don’t like them on a Saturday 3 o’clock, but after that I've got no problem with them.” He is highly critical of the Premier League’s leadership. “Who knows where it’s going to end? Probably with more clubs losing their soul.” Murray elaborates on this more in a chat about the book. “We've got a fantastic club, lots of youngsters, ladies, great mix, generations, really proper football club and we're very fortunate to have the owner we've got, but I didn't do the book because I'd been in the game so long again, and I did St George's Park and Wembley, I thought I should voice my concerns, that's to the advantage you spend a bit of time and effort on sportswashing, because it's quite new in the north east. That's where I am, I put my head above the parapet really, I didn't write the book to do sportswashing to be truthful. It's the issue isn't it.” Murray hones in on what this is in the book. “Sportswashing presents huge concern for the future. It’s money through the back door that hopefully will be investigated properly. And it goes back to that old chestnut of the supporter not being able to influence the thing he or she loves. In fact, it’s even worse: supporters are now turning their heads and not looking where the cash comes from as long as they are winning trophies or qualifying for Europe – that’s the ultimate triumph of sportswashing.” Speaking now, he brings much of this down to a core driving motivation. “There’s a lot of self interest because we have to win games. But football should be for the good of society. That's what we're all about really isn't it. “It reflects on them, because it's the power of the brand. We can get people to live better lives due to the crest. “That’s what the game's about.” Sir Bob Murray’s book can be bought at www.sirbobmurraybook.com, with 100% of the cover price going to the Foundation of Light Read More Eddie Howe’s tactical move exposes Newcastle weakness in Dortmund ‘lesson’ Newcastle given reality check as summer decision returns to haunt them One of those nights – Eddie Howe bemoans fine margins after Newcastle defeat Eddie Howe’s tactical move exposes Newcastle weakness in Dortmund ‘lesson’ Newcastle given reality check as summer decision returns to haunt them One of those nights – Eddie Howe bemoans fine margins after Newcastle defeat