Mark Attanasio has mapped out why he wants to be part of Norwich City’s future.

The Milwaukee Brewers’ owner’s investment in the club, first revealed by the Pinkun earlier this year, was confirmed by the Canaries on Wednesday morning.

The 64-year-old US sports tycoon, and his group, have bought a minority shareholding in the club, with Attanasio joining the board ‘with immediate effect’.

Here are the key points from his first club interview.

Why Norwich City and why football?

When you are a professional sports owner in the United States, folks reach out to you. We probably had our first outreach in five years to look at various soccer clubs. This is the first one that really resonated with me. The only one of at least half a dozen that we actually went on a site visit.

Interestingly Teddy Werner’s dad, Tom, was involved with the Fenway Sports Group (at Liverpool) that John W Henry controls. Teddy always had a passion for football with Liverpool and ended up being the conduit for us to take a look at this. It gathered momentum very quickly.

My son Mike and another of my colleagues did a video call with several of the management, including Stuart and Zoe (Webber). It gained a lot of momentum from there.

What is your relationship like with Delia and Michael?

Much like at the Milwaukee Brewers and the Bud Selig family, who owned the club for 30-odd years. He cared a lot about who was taking it over. So do they. I had to get through a gauntlet of the management, not only the economic aspect, but that there was also a personality fit.

Making sure we had a similar approach to things, because it was almost like dating but there was no contact directly. It was more through intermediaries and we found ourselves almost pre-approved.

It is interesting. A very close friend from college of mine, Richard Ressler, is also investing in this with me. We were actually nervous to go and meet them because we knew this was a really good situation. Even though on paper they were terrific people maybe culturally you don’t meet up.

Her husband Michael (Wynn Jones) being a historian had some wonderful stories about travelling in the United States in the 1960s and interacting with people like Robert Kennedy, who are icons in our history. It was a great long weekend.

Outline the nature of your financial commitment at this stage to the club?

We looked at different structures. Michael Foulger was willing to sell his shares to give a toe hold investor an opportunity to come in, if Delia and Michael wanted this to happen. Then we looked at other scenarios with the club. There may be some other small shareholding at some point but Delia and Michael are in charge.

They control the board. I will have one board seat. They are firmly in charge and it gives me the opportunity to learn, to help if asked. I don’t walk in after the first few meetings and mouth off. That is not my style.

One of the great benefits of buying the Brewers was the founder (Bud Selig) was a commissioner in major league baseball at the time. So I had this huge fountain of knowledge not only about the team but the community. So for the first three or four years I probably called him twice a week for advice.

This is a similar situation. It is a huge benefit to me to learn the sport. Not just from them but the management team, who are exceptional.

Zoe, Stuart, Anthony (Richens). Everything is there.

What else can you bring?

I don’t think I can add anything from a football standpoint. But I do know what has worked in our sport in terms of nutrition, analytics, how to train and there might be a cross-pollination of ideas. Not only that but maybe things I can take from the club and apply to the Brewers in terms of our methodology.

Regarding finance, and I call it my day job, I have built a money firm with a couple of partners and we manage about $42 billion. From the financial sophistication standpoint, I feel very comfortable in that area. I mentioned Richard Ressler. He has built a big real estate group, so in terms of real expertise he will have a point of view to funnel in.

The club has already been working with ‘Legends’ which is a top notch sports and entertainment company. I won’t be chiming into Stuart Webber to ask whether the young Brazilian he got is the right choice.

How hands on will you be?

I actually live in Los Angeles. I have to balance how we watch the Brewers’ games. We play 162 in 180-odd days. So 5pm in LA the game comes on. I see a number of their games on the road. I would expect to do the same. Maybe pick fun matches to come to.

We have an office in London, so when I am in London on business, absolutely. We might time some of those trips for when I want to be around the club.

I am sure I will watch every minute. There is nothing like being at a match. The passion and the energy. The passion and energy at an English match matches the play-offs over in the US. Every game counts.

In terms of our ownership of the Brewers, and we are now into our 18th year, we are stewards not owners. That is clearly the case with English football. It is the fan and the community. Families grow up and you stay a lifelong fan. I have met folks now in LA, once this thing become public, who are fans of Norwich City.

They were excited to meet me, not because I own the Brewers or a money management company, because I was looking to get involved in an English football club.

Did Norwich City’s relegation from the Premier League make you rethink your plans?

Things changed with the first board call. At that stage the team had about 15pc chance of staying in the Premier League but the Zoom call got me completely engaged. That was the light switch. It was eerie how parallel that was to the situation here at the Brewers.

We bought into this team when they were at the bottom. I had people telling me, ‘Are you crazy, they are no good?’ and I looked at the stadium and the management team and Rick Schlesinger, who was working on the Norwich deal, and everything about it was good. Other than the team’s performance.

While it is disappointing to drop they are right near the top of the Championship this season.

You just need a tweak here or there and some luck to get back up. I met the coach as well, by the way, and I liked him. I liked everyone I met, and I don’t say that lightly.

How much do you relish the challenge of getting the club back to the Premier League?

It is all about the challenge. At my very first press conference at Milwaukee they asked, ‘Is it you love to win or hate to lose?’ and I hate to lose. I hate to lose.

Why is there a trend of American ownership, or investment, in English football clubs?

I talked to John Henry and Tom Werner in some detail about all of this. I know Wes Edens very well who is involved with Aston Villa. I know Gerry (Cardinale) at Red Bird, who has just bought into AC Milan. We all talk about this. The world has got smaller. I am able to watch all of the Canaries matches on television.

You couldn’t do that 10 years ago. I watched every match of the Premier League at the end of last season. It was perfect in terms of the time zone. Get up, get some coffee.

It has to do with that. There is a financial aspect to all sports. Live sports is as engaging as there is in the world. I still have a lot to learn but I can still follow the game.

It is a passion, not an investment. It is a passion for Delia and Michael. But it is not fun to lose, so if you are going to do it, you want to win.

Norwich have operated within a well-documented self-funded model in recent years. Will that change?

Teams, whatever the sport, have to be run well. I know sometimes that is hard for fans to hear. It was interesting to me that even Tottenham, for all their success, have made similar public statements. The money they make, they put back into the team.

It is not a perfect correlation but the teams who have financial problems tend to go into a downward spiral. The further you spiral, the harder to move back up. It is one of the reasons in America teams try to build to a World Series and then end up having to rebuild.

I am not interested in rebuilding because it is not so easy to climb back up. The team has to be run responsibly. I spoke to Richard Scuadmore (who used to run the Premier League) and one of the things he pointed out was how Delia and Michael run the club.

They put themselves in a position to succeed every year. You can’t control what happens on the field. But you can control making sure you have great facilities. I have studied a couple of Premier League clubs that have made bad investments in players and that leads to this downward spiral.

You have to be careful but you also have to take risks. If you don’t you probably are not going to succeed. They do take risks at Norwich City, but they are measured risks.

You can get very emotional as an investor. But one of the things I like about this at this point is it is more about board participation. Hopefully learning more about the sport and bringing some of our knowledge.

The Fenway Sports Group found a lot of what they did with the Red Sox was transferable to Liverpool. I know what it is. We have all of that same knowledge here in our baseball club. In terms of analytics, training, different methodologies.

Norwich have got the virtual reality (Soccerbot) machine. We don’t have that. When you are looking to do something like this, you look for reasons not to do it, rather than the other way around.

You get passionate, it is a lot of time, and if the deck is stacked against you, which is really isn’t for this club. It has strong management. Stuart has made a lot of smart moves. Great facilities, passionate owners, a great community.

We spent a couple of nights going out to dinner away from Delia and Michael at her restaurant and just walking around the town. It was great. Really nice people. It reminded me a lot of this community (in Milwaukee). A place you want to be.

Did you follow a ‘soccer’ team before Norwich?

 

 

I was interested in Liverpool, because of Tom and John. I followed World Cup games. I cheered for Italy. Actually I was in Italy the year they got to the final. That was pretty exciting. Maybe more at that regard than a particular club.