Birmingham mayoral candidate calls for combined West Midlands football team to compete with Manchester United and Liverpool

LABOUR party mayoral candidate Sion Simon has come up with a bizarre idea to improve the standard of football in Birmingham.

Following Aston Villa’s relegation from the Premier League, West Brom is the city’s only top flight team.

And Simon believes the city would benefit from merging all it’s clubs into one distinctive global brand.

“It may sound daft but I think we really suffer from the lack of a global football brand with the words West Midlands or Birmingham in the title.

“It gets more and more important every year as football gets bigger and bigger. It’s a massive advantage for Liverpool and Manchester,” he told the Labour Party Conference.

The candidate, who supports West Brom, may have a point if he’s saying that Tony Pulis’ Baggies are unlikely to ever drive global shirts sales in the way that Liverpool and Man United can.

However, it’s difficult to see Aston Villa, West Brom, Wolves and Coventry fans accepting being part of a single club, let alone one called ‘Birmingham’.

The second city is no stranger to local politicians causing controversy by talking down its football teams.

Former Birmingham City Council leader Mike Whitby whipped up a storm by suggesting former Aston Villa owner Randy Lerner rename the club ‘Aston Birmingham’.

“I think that a closer association between Aston Villa and the city of Birmingham could help boost Birmingham’s profile across the world,” said the Tory politician.

But an Aston Villa spokesman replied: “The idea is utterly ridiculous and a complete non-starter.”

In Cricket, Warwickshire CCC have already followed Whitby’s suggestion by changing the name of their T20 team to Birmingham Bears, with the support of the council.

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