Mark Attanasio remains totally committed to Norwich City, but Zoe Webber understands why some fans are baffled by a protracted share allotment process.

Webber was asked directly by a supporter at a BBC Radio Norfolk hosted forum whether the Milwaukee Brewers’ owner was having ‘second thoughts’ about his City involvement.

Attanasio joined the board in September 2022, after initially buying out Michael Foulger’s shareholding, in addition to purchasing £10m in c-preference shares.

But there has been no official confirmation regarding a further allotment of shares issue from February this year, when the expectation was the Attanasio group would increase their financial stake in the club.  

This is a transcript of what executive director Webber had to say on that share allotment, and Attanasio’s on going commitment.

(Why is the share allotment process taking so long?) It's gone quiet in the public domain, but behind the scenes we're continuing to work on it. I think the complexity comes because we're a PLC and that brings with it a certain enhanced level of legal and regulatory framework that we have to work through.

Being brutally honest, I don't think they were really designed for us but big trading PLCs, but we get caught by them. That means a lot of documents we're producing in draft have to go to independent regulators who have to approve them.

It's a chunky process to say the least. We’re hoping in the coming weeks that we'll make some significant progress. We will keep people updated as and when we can, but the regulatory regime we have to adhere to limits the amount of progress we can update on.

(Has Attanasio had second thoughts?) Definitely not. I appreciate it might feel quiet from an external perspective, but absolutely not internally.

A few of us actually were able to go to Arizona, for the Brewers' pre-season training earlier this year, and we turned up at a big supporter event for the Brewers and all of their staff are Norwich mad.

They are following the news, getting up early to watch games, there is a massive level of enthusiasm.

Around the boardroom table we meet with him at least once a month, sometimes more. There is huge support and a huge insight.

As it stands at the moment he's a minority shareholder. And very much supportive of what we're doing.

Mark was never brought in with an open cheque book. And we wouldn't expect him to be stumping up the cash, but what he's giving us is amazing support and a lot of fresh ideas.

Delia, Michael and Mark are very committed to making this club as sustainable as possible. They won’t take any risk, in terms of investment. Sometimes you see clubs where money flows in and then it gets cut off and that leaves a really difficult situation. It is important for us that we don't put this club in that position.

When he came in Mark himself spoke about how he was new to football. It is not an industry he has much knowledge of and he's very respectful and understanding about that. He is very key to learn, in particular from Delia and Michael as long standing custodians of the club, about the nuances of football.

In the short time he has been on the board his contribution is growing, and we expect that to continue.