Birmingham City chairman Tom Wagner has not ruled out the possibility of the club surpassing their record transfer fee, which they set last summer when they signed Jay Stansfield from Fulham.
It feels like a long time ago since everyone was going bonkers on the final evening of the summer transfer window over Birmingham’s deal with Fulham to sign their young striker. It was this post from The Telegraph’s Sam Dean that sent the online world into meltdown, claiming that the League One side had agreed a deal worth £20 million for Stansfield.
The deal obliterated the third division’s previous transfer record of £4 million that Sunderland paid Wigan Athletic for Will Grigg, although later reporting on the Stansfield deal suggested it wasn’t quite as high as Dean had said.
The Athletic reported the agreed fee for the then-21-year-old was between £12-15 million with heavy add-ons on top, while Birmingham Live suggested it was actually even lower than that, suggesting that it was £12-14 million, including add-ons.
Either way, it was an astronomical transfer that no League One team is likely to break for a long, long time. However, Birmingham could well top that this summer, according to their chairman.
Tom Wagner makes bold Birmingham City summer transfer window statement
Wagner hasn’t ruled out the possibility of surpassing the bonkers fee that his club paid for Stansfield in the upcoming summer transfer window. Now that it’s been confirmed that Birmingham will be playing Championship football next season, it also means that they will face different financial restrictions than they have done this season.
| 2024/25 League One table (as of 15/04/25) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | P | GD | Points | |
| 1 | (C) Birmingham City | 40 | 44 | 95 |
| 2 | Wrexham | 42 | 27 | 82 |
| 3 | Wycombe Wanderers | 42 | 30 | 81 |
| 4 | Stockport County | 42 | 26 | 77 |
| 5 | Charlton Athletic | 42 | 20 | 76 |
| 6 | Reading | 42 | 8 | 69 |
They will have to abide by the Profit and Sustainability Rules which are there to try and limit the financial losses made by clubs, so Blues may not be allowed to be quite as big and bold as they might like this summer.
“If we have the headroom, we’ll do it,” is what Wagner said, via Birmingham Live, when asked whether City might break their transfer record this summer.
“We’ll see. I think at the end of the day, a lot of it is thinking about what do we spend this year versus what we spend in future years? Where’s the talent? What’s the price? Where’s the value? All of those are questions that can’t be answered until the window opens, but you know we do have high ambitions and, at the same time, we will be seeking great value.
“I think we did an exceptional job with that last summer and I think we’ll do a very good job with it this summer.”
Birmingham can’t afford to lose their cool in the transfer market
Part of the reason why Birmingham were able to spend so much last summer was because of the money they received from Amazon for allowing them to film the behind-the-scenes docu-series on the League One champions that is coming out this summer.
A behind the scenes series on the Blues is coming out this summer.
Now, City will still have plenty of money to spend this summer even if they don’t get any money from Amazon this season, but they will need to be a bit more careful with their spending.
They will have to pick their moments as to when it is best to use their vast resources, and which players to use them on. They are going to have to be much more clever this time around, because they don’t want to fall foul of any financial regulations that would hinder their progress as a club.
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