Former Aston Villa chief Keith Wyness has claimed that it is not a given that Birmingham City's new stadium plans to come fruition, firing a warning at Blues co-owner and chairman Tom Wagner.
On November 20, the Second City club revealed the design for their proposed 62,000-seater stadium, initially named ‘The Birmingham City Powerhouse'.
Until 2030, Birmingham will continue to ply their trade at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park, where Blues have been mightily impressive in recent times.
Chris Davies's troops went the whole of their 2024-25 League One campaign unbeaten at the venue, and have also won four straight Championship home games recently.
The latest of those successes arrived on Monday night, when goals from Paik Seung-ho and Demarai Gray sealed a 2-1 victory over Watford.
‘Lots of questions to be answered' – Wyness expresses Birmingham concerns
Speaking to Football Insider, former Villa and Everton chief Wyness explained his thoughts on Birmingham's Sports Quarter project.
“We’ve been there with Birmingham before. I remember before there was going to be a major casino project as well that was going to be going on with David Sullivan, Karren Brady.
“The other question that we’ve got to look at is where are the revenues of this major facility going to go? It’s going to increase a lot of revenues now.
“There’s been talk as to whether it’s going to go into the club or whether it goes back into Knighthead Capital and some of the investors. So there are a lot of questions still to be answered on that point as well.
“So a lot more questions, but certainly I’ll say a good start for Birmingham that they put something out there. You have got to aim for the moon sometimes and they’ve certainly done that.
“Certainly they’ve been in the shadow of Aston Villa for a long, long time. This is certainly making a statement, but now you’ve got to live up to it.”
The failed ‘City of Birmingham Stadium' project
Wyness is alluding to plans from Birmingham City during the early 2000s to build a 55,000-seater stadium whilst under the ownership of Karren Brady and David Sullivan.
The feasibility of the project hinged on the venue receiving a license for the creation of a ‘super casino', with the government eventually granting that permission to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) instead.
As a result, Birmingham's bold project and new stadium plans collapsed, with the club remaining at St Andrew's through a turbulent period of incompetent ownership.
FGG says: Focus on the future
Given the boldness of Birmingham's plans and especially the polarising design of The Powerhouse, there was always going to be skeptics at this stage.
Until the first brick is laid, Blues must ignore outside noise and push on with plans for a better future for the club and the Second City as a whole.