In the past month we’ve already seen the departure of Craig Gardner from his role as Director of Football, and the appointment of Scott Sellars as Senior Pathway to Professional and Under-21s Coach. Looking at roles that are open there are going to be more changes coming to the academy in the short-term future, all of which will hopefully continue to improve the pathway of players from the academy setup to the first team.
However, it’s not just the academy which is seeing changes. There are rumours of changes on the commercial side too.
Some of these rumours have caused some consternation among the fans and with this in mind I’ve put together this article to try to make sense of what is going on, and why I think it’s evidence of the need for stronger leadership from the club.
Sponsor changes
One of the big rumours doing the rounds currently is that there is a change coming with regards to front of shirt sponsorship.
Back in 2024, Blues announced that they had come to an agreement with Undefeated to extend their sponsorship deal as Principal Club Partner for three years.
That extension means the deal would run to the end of the 2026/27 season – ie to the end of this season – and naturally the assumption is that Undefeated remain in place.
However, life is never that simple.
On June 15, Blues completed the signing of Jhon Solis from Girona – a huge signing ahead of the new season. One thing I noticed in the piece confirming his signing was that Undefeated’s logo is not shown. There are logos for Nike, Delta and the University of Birmingham, but the familiar five-strike logo of Undefeated is not there.
Indeed, in the footer there is now no mention of Undefeated as partner of Blues, principal or otherwise – which would further indicate that the partnership has ended. (nb – if you check and it’s still there, it’s possible that you are looking at a cached version of the page – try in incognito mode and it should be gone.)
Sponsorship agreements come and go in football – so it’s not really a surprise if one does come to an end.
What surprises me is that there appears to be no ready-made replacement – especially if one considers how much of a song and dance Blues have made about bringing in revenue.
While these rumours have been ongoing, there is one story that I think a lot of Blues fans have missed about brand partnerships.
Back in January 2024, I reported on this website about the deal Knighthead struck which would add their name to both St Andrew’s and the training ground at Wast Hills. The deal was interesting because it had been cleverly worked to pay out Blues based on social media impressions.
At nearly £10m a year this deal is huge to Blues – based on the accounts for the season ending 2025, that deal would be worth about 26% of the £36.453M revenue made by the club alone.
That announcement made by the club confirmed it was to run until the end of the 2025/6 season – which in financial terms means it finishes tomorrow.
What that means is, officially, one of the biggest brand partnerships and sources of income for the club comes to an end this week with no sign of any extension.
Thankfully, it’s my understanding that the club have indeed agreed to an extension some time ago – at terms which were the same or better than the one agreed in 2024. However, although this extension was agreed to some time ago, no announcement was made as it was felt unmerited.
As grateful as I am that the deal is continuing – especially at better terms – it does make my spidey senses tingle a tiny bit that it wasn’t announced.
I remember the original news was met very well by fans and was great bait for fans of other teams – why not confirm that it has been extended?
And maybe this is on me being the person I am, but leads me on to wonder what else is being held back right now?
A need for transparency?
Transparency is one of those buzz words that gets banded around a lot by people – including it has to be said, me. The need to know everything isn’t something that is shared by everyone but I think that there is a proportion of the fanbase which likes to be updated as to what is going on at the club.
When Knighthead came in, then-CEO Garry Cook made a big effort to show that the fans would be involved.
The Official Supporters Club was set up so that fans could belong to a supporters club with proper affiliation to Blues and have an avenue to not only bond together but to pass back feedback on the supporter experience.
There were groups created under the “Blues Matters” banner which would meet regularly to discuss stuff around the club, with each group having a specific focus,
And then there was the series of Open House events. Originally designed to be held on a quarterly basis, this quickly became semi-annual before seemingly stopping altogether after the last event was held in October 2025.
While I totally get the criticism that the Open House events had the “same old faces” in attendance (being one of those “same old faces” myself), they were a good opportunity for the club to put out direct messages to the fan base to inform and reassure.
I think one of the reasons these kinds of events have died a bit of a death is because they require a lot of effort and maybe the benefits the club got from holding them was outweighed by the cost of resources to do so.
However, I think the mutters online about lack of information forthcoming from the club that I’m seeing demonstrates a need for something.
What I’d like to see is something a bit simpler – an interview with either Jeremy Dale in his position as CEO or someone from Knighthead like Andrew Shannahan to be broadcast via the club’s channels.
I don’t think it would have to be anything groundbreaking spoken about; indeed, I think in the main it could be quite fluffy as interviews go.
However, I think seeing someone from the top giving a bit of reassurance that everything is good would go far.
I believe that the mutterings about things changing are only happening because there is a vacuum of information – change that and much of it will die down.
That being said, there is one thing that us Blues fans need to be patient about.
Not yet time for Wagner
One name that I missed out above that I wanted to hear from is Tom Wagner – and that omission is absolutely deliberate.
There are a lot of Blues fans I see on social media who are desperate to hear something, anything, from Wagner. It’s apparently got so bad that the fact his official Instagram profile liked a post recently was news.
And with this desperation I’ve seen more than one Blues fan offer the opinion that Wagner should record some short video to be shared by the club if only to say he was getting better.
I’m not going to lie, I totally understand this feeling.
Since Knighthead have come into the club, Wagner has been the figurehead. He’s a man who not only comes across as incredibly smart but also incredibly charismatic.
The way Wagner seems to have taken the club and fans to his heart has been something I’ve loved after the previous three decades of ownership – and yes, I miss seeing him involved with Blues a lot.
However, as much as I miss Wagner I also understand the reality of the situation.
Blues are not the only project Knighthead have invested in – and should Wagner record something for us, he would then be obliged to do it for every other project too.
Worse, I have no doubt that by putting himself out in the open like that, Wagner would open himself up to being bombarded with messages from investors, stakeholders and clients as well as Blues fans.
And as much as I miss Wagner, I truly believe it’s in everyone’s best interests if he is given time to recover fully before saying or doing anything.
If that means we have to wait longer – so be it.
In short – things are okay but they would be better if the club could come out and confirm that for us.
And while it’s right and proper that some things are kept under wraps until the deal is done, some reassurances that deals are getting done wouldn’t go amiss.
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