Norwich City director Mark Attanasio has joined forces with Liverpool owner John Henry and other US sports tycoons to hold investment talks with the US PGA golf tour.

Attanasio, who was recently in England to attend City’s annual meeting and will be confirmed as a joint minority shareholder pending Football League approval, was one of the names listed in the Strategic Sports Group (SSG) now in advanced discussions with professional golf’s leading tour.

The PGA tour’s policy board released a statement to their players on Sunday outlining SSG are the preferred partner to enter into advanced negotiations over potential future investment.

No details on the state of the negotiations or the amount of money that might be involved were released, but the announcement comes ahead of a December 31 deadline to reach agreement with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour over the future of the elite end of the professional game.

Attanasio, who in addition to his City involvement, is a long time principal owner of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club, an investor in the Milwaukee Admirals and a member of the committee who helped secure the 2028 Summer Olympics for Los Angeles.

The successful businessman is joined in the SSG by Henry and Tom Werner, who as the Fenway Sports Group own the Boston Red Sox, Liverpool and the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins.

In Attanasio’s first club interview after he became a Norwich director, in September 2022, the New Yorker cited the Werner family as a key factor in facilitating his initial discussions with the Canaries.

Other members of Strategic Sports Group (SSG) include Gerry Cardinale, whose RedBird Capital Partners owns AC Milan, Tom Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs and Marc Lasry, former owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.

SSG was the PGA tour board's unanimous choice to negotiate a potential partnership in the new PGA Tour Enterprises.

The new for-profit company was at the heart of a framework agreement announced in the summer among the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi financial backer of LIV Golf.

The latest news comes as US PGA tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, is scheduled to meet Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment fund, in the coming days as the sides attempt to finalize that initial preliminary agreement from June this year.

The split at the top of professional golf has seen the likes of Phil Mickleson, Brooks Koepka and European stalwarts Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter join forces with the LIV Golf tour, while Ryder Cup star Jon Rahm is the latest high profile golfer to recently sign up in a reported £450m deal.