Stadium project for Birmingham is like 'Welcome to Wrexham' supersized

BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — Think “Welcome to Wrexham” only supersized.

Birmingham City — a second-tier English soccer team that has been outside of the Premier League for more than a decade — has announced plans to build one of the biggest stadiums in Europe.

The proposed 62,000-capacity venue is intended to not only propel the team into soccer's elite but also change the face of Britain's second largest city, which recently earned notoriety for giant rats and mountains of garbage in a strike by trash collectors.

“In the U.S. we would refer to Birmingham as an NFL city, meaning it’s big enough to have an NFL team, which is a big statement,” Birmingham chairman and American financier Tom Wagner told The Associated Press.

Birmingham has more than one million residents and is 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London in the Midlands of England. Wagner has bold ambitions for the club and city.

Through Wagner’s company Knighthead Capital Management, Birmingham became the latest English soccer team to come under U.S. ownership, with NFL great Tom Brady a co-investor.

It is a similar formula to the one implemented so successfully by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac at Wrexham, which has turned the once down-on-its-luck team into a household name around the world.

Like Wrexham, Birmingham has leveraged its celebrity backer, Brady, and reached wider audiences through a fly-on-the-wall documentary series. Both teams play in the second-tier Championship and want to win promotion to the Premier League. But the announcement of a stadium that would be the fourth largest of any English soccer team sets the Birmingham project apart.

“Birmingham, it doesn’t need to compete with anybody other than Birmingham, and what I mean by that is Birmingham’s a big enough place to attract any global act, any substantial sport competition,” Wagner said. “If we build a venue that is worthy of hosting those, Birmingham’s a big enough city to support that.”

The Birmingham City Powerhouse Stadium, costing around 1.2 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) and projected to be completed by 2030, would be at the heart of a new sports quarter in the middle of the city. The overall project is estimated to cost a minimum of 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion).

Wagner wants it to attract major music stars and potentially the NFL.

He claims it will create 14,000 jobs when complete, adding “hundreds of millions of pounds" gross to the economy each year.

Local fans have been swept up in a wave of optimism over a return to the Premier League for the first time since 2011. That was the same year Birmingham won the English League Cup, one of only two major trophies the club has lifted in its 150-year history. Last season it was playing in the third tier.

That is a measure of the task on Wagner's hands to lead the club back to the top flight.

“When we look at what the sports quarter will bring in total revenue, even if we weren’t in the Prem the year it opens, we would have double the revenue of the next closest club in the Championship,” he said. “So we’d have to be pretty woefully incompetent at selecting players with that kind of revenue not to get promoted in our first year in this new venue.”

Elite clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have been under U.S. ownership for some time — not always for the better — and American investors are increasingly looking at opportunities to buy lower league English teams.

Wagner believes the models of Wrexham and Birmingham can be repeated.

“Everyone wants to be in a top-level club and I think what they find attractive with the lower-level clubs is the opportunity and promise of getting there,” he said. "There’s a lot of folks in the U.S. that are looking for a club that resembles maybe their neighborhood or their part of a city or their city itself, and Birmingham will resonate with a lot of people in different places in the U.S., and I suspect that we’ll find fans like that around the world.

“There’ll be more Americans coming for better or worse. My apologies to the English fans who may not like that but hopefully they’ll be owners that are worthy of developing close ties with their fans. I think we’ve done that here.”

James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Pepole take pictures of a Diorama of Birmingham City Football Club's new stadium plans during the unveiling in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Jacob King/PA via AP)

Birmingham City co-owner and chairman Tom Wagner speaks during the unveiling of Birmingham City Football Club's new stadium plans in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Jacob King/PA via AP)

Pepole look at a Diorama of Birmingham City Football Club's new stadium plans during the unveiling in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Jacob King/PA via AP)

Birmingham City co-owner and chairman Tom Wagner during the unveiling of Birmingham City Football Club's new stadium plans in Birmingham, England, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (Jacob King/PA via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — A second suspect in the stray-bullet killing of a 7-month-old baby on a Brooklyn street was arrested Friday, police said, two days after a shooting the police commissioner called “a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience.”

Matthew Rodriguez, 18, was apprehended in Pennsylvania by New York Police Department detectives working with U.S. Marshals, the NYPD said.

The suspected shooter, 21-year-old Amuri Greene, was arrested shortly after the drive-by gunfire that killed Kaori Patterson-Moore. Greene pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges at an arraignment Friday night.

Kaori was in her stroller when a two men sped down a street on a moped Wednesday afternoon. Greene, riding on the back of the vehicle, fired into a group of people on a street corner, according to a court complaint.

Kaori's mother, Lianna Charles-Moore, told the New York Post that after hearing what she initially believed were fireworks, she was comforting her startled 2-year-old son — who had been grazed by a bullet — when she looked to her left and saw her baby daughter bleeding. The infant had been shot in the head.

“My daughter was innocent. She didn’t deserve that," Charles-Moore told the newspaper. She said her daughter was just about starting to crawl and had recently begun saying “Mama.”

Greene told police he was aiming for another person in the crowd, according to the court complaint.

Police said the moped sped and crashed into a car two blocks away, hurling both men off the vehicle. Greene was injured and soon was hospitalized in police custody, but the moped driver fled.

Authorities haven't yet released court papers that detail Rodriguez's alleged role. But they haven't indicated they were looking for anyone other than the gunman — alleged to have been Greene — and the moped driver.

Greene was being held without bail after his arraignment. A voice message seeking comment was left with his attorney.

Police didn't immediately have information on how the men are connected or where Rodriguez lives; no working telephone number for him could immediately be found. Police charges against him were pending.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch expressed heartbreak and outrage over Kaori's death.

“This is a terrible day in our city, a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience,” Tisch said at a news briefing Wednesday.

This image taken from video provided by the New York Police Department shows New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, flanked by Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, left, and Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, speaking during a news conference, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in New York. (NYPD via AP)