'Crime against my beliefs' - What Tom Wagner told Birmingham City players in X-rated Wembley rant

Tom Wagner says Birmingham City must learn how to perform at a higher level following Sunday’s disappointing 2-0 defeat to Peterborough United at Wembley Stadium.

Blues had already secured promotion back to the Championship and were named League One title winners before a ball was even kicked at Wembley, but it was a huge regret not to add further silverware. Wagner, Birmingham’s chairman since July 2023, desperately wanted to win the Vertu Trophy and has admitted it was one of the club’s big objectives.

When the Birmingham players entered the Royal Box to claim their runners-up medals, Wagner and co-owner Tom Brady were waiting to welcome them. Brady remained quiet for the most part but Wagner certainly didn’t as he was filmed letting loose in an explosive rant.

The chairman has since revealed what he told the players and how he feels about the day overall. “I won’t say word for word, but it was a variation on my favourite acronym,” Wagner admitted when asked what he was shouting in the Royal Box.

“It begins with an F and ends in A because we’ve had an amazing season where we’ve achieved our two main objectives – promotion and winning the league. Any time you’re able to play at the home of English football, it’s a historical event. It’s an unparalleled experience.

“But what really matters is delivering for our supporters because we didn’t do that today. We’ve got work to do because this season’s objectives and longer-term objectives have not been met. I will promise every Bluenose out there that we will not stop until we hit those objectives.”

The FEA acronym Wagner speaks of, meaning ‘f*** ‘em all’, often props up in his motivational speeches and it certainly did at Wembley, both before and after the match. The American typically uses it to display defiance against doubters. In this case, it was likely to remind the players of their champion status.

Blues chairman fumes at players

As much as Wagner is proud of the season, Blues fell short of his expectations at Wembley and he was far from pleased. Yes, the two goals were both unstoppable, but Birmingham’s response regrettably failed to lift the devastated 43,000-strong Blues support.

“Figure out how to ******* win,” Wagner added when asked what’s next. “We’ve done a lot of it this season but we haven’t been able to win the match that matters the most.

“We need to learn to win at a higher level and we need to find a way to prepare ourselves for an even higher level than that. There’s a lot of work to be done.

“It would be a crime against my beliefs for me to say anything other than I hate losing. I usually decorate that with a more colourful term, but I can't say strongly enough how much I despise not achieving the objectives we had set out.

“So yes, of course it hurts, but it hurts because I wanted our fans to celebrate as if they were the Peterborough fans, and as happy as I am for the fans of Peterborough, who won't enjoy the joy of promotion, this year. I wanted our fans to have it.”

Wagner outlines unprecedented Birmingham revenue

One big positive to come out of the trip to Wembley, at least, is the news that Blues have generated unprecedented revenue as a result of this season’s success. It was confirmed last week that Amazon Prime have been recording a documentary about the club, while merchandise sales are at an all-time high.

“Without having had the tail wind of the documentary series distributed by Amazon to over 200 countries, we would have already been on a path to have the same level of revenue as parachute clubs next year in the Championship, which is something that has never happened before,” Wagner added, proudly.

“With the tail wind of a doc series and so many global partners that we have, we’ve got a lot to come on the revenue side. People might say why do you keep talking about the revenue side of things, but without revenue we don’t get the players.

“We are focused on making this a commercially viable club. I will not rest until we are the most powerful revenue-generating club in the Championship by a wide margin, including those who get parachute payments.”