Hugh Jackman in Talks to Invest in Norwich City
Hugh Jackman is in talks to buy a stake in Norwich City – and he insists this is the year the Canaries go up.
The Wolverine star, a lifelong Norwich fan through his Norfolk-born mother, revealed he is negotiating with the club’s board to purchase shares, with any deal understood to be an investment directly into Norwich City rather than the Norfolk Holdings group that controls it.
“I’m very, very interested – and talking about it right now,” Jackman said on TalkSport when asked if he might follow his close friend Ryan Reynolds into English football ownership. “You’re the first one to know that. There’s a little exclusive.
“Good on Ryan, you do your thing, I’m all about the Canaries.”
From FA Cup nights to Carrow Road
Jackman’s bond with Norwich goes back to childhood in Australia, where his English parents would wake him in the middle of the night to watch the FA Cup.
“We used to watch the FA Cup. It was the only thing we were allowed to stay up for, 3 o’clock in the morning,” the 57-year-old said at the launch of his new film, *The Death of Robin Hood*. “We had to go to bed first, and we were woken up to watch it.
“So I was seeing all these teams, Arsenal and all these teams, and I was like, I’ve got to pick a team.
“I said, ‘Mum, where are you from?’ She went, ‘Norwich’.
“I went, ‘Is there a football team in Norwich?’ She went, ‘Yep’. I said, ‘That’s my team’.”
His mother still lives in the city, and Jackman has spoken before about visiting Norwich as a boy and making an early pilgrimage to Carrow Road when he was 16. He has since returned “a couple of times” and talks about the club with the fervour of any die-hard supporter.
“I went to Carrow Road a couple of times, and I love the Canaries, and this is the year we’re going to get promoted. That’s my prediction,” he said.
He has even confessed to owning a replica of the 1984 Milk Cup commemorative shirt, a totem of Norwich’s greatest day at Wembley.
Second time Norwich came calling
This is not the first time Norwich have explored Jackman as an investor.
Back in 2011, when Delia Smith was still the majority shareholder, the actor received a letter inviting him to become a “celebrity investor” and small part-owner.
“I got a letter about a year ago saying, ‘Being such a huge Norwich City fan would I like to be a celebrity investor?, like a small part-owner,’” he recalled at the time.
“I said, ‘I think that’s a little stretched; I’ve been to Carrow Road once, my mum took me’, so I decided not to invest.”
Thirteen years on, the landscape has changed. So has Jackman’s stance.
Norfolk Holdings, led by American businessman Mark Attanasio, assumed control from Smith and Michael Wynn-Jones in a phased handover completed in 2024. The group now owns around 85 per cent of the club’s shares, with Smith and Wynn-Jones retaining a 10 per cent stake after 28 years at the helm. The remaining shares sit with a cluster of independent fans and small investors.
Talks with Jackman, who is reported to be worth around £100m, are understood to have been ongoing for some time.
Hollywood, waffles and an American-led era
Jackman’s affection for Norwich is not confined to the stadium. In 2023, he was spotted at the Waffle House on St Giles Street, telling staff it was a must-visit every time he came to the city. The Hollywood star dropping into a local favourite has become part of the club’s folklore, another small stitch in the tapestry that ties him to Norfolk.
Norwich, under Attanasio’s Norfolk Holdings, already sit within an American-led structure. Attanasio also runs the Milwaukee Brewers in Major League Baseball, and his arrival marked a clear shift in the club’s direction and ambition.
If Jackman’s deal goes through, he would become the latest high-profile figure from across the Atlantic to buy into English football.
Reynolds, his close friend, co-owns Wrexham, who now share a division with Norwich in the Championship. NFL legend Tom Brady holds a minority stake in Birmingham City. JJ Watt has invested in Burnley. Will Ferrell is part of the 49ers-backed ownership at Leeds United, while Snoop Dogg owns a slice of Swansea City.
The trend is unmistakable: American money and global celebrity are reshaping the ownership map of the English game.
Norwich, though, would be different. This would not be a Hollywood outsider parachuting in for a project. This would be the club that woke a young Hugh Jackman at 3am, the badge he picked because his mum said, “Norwich.”
He now believes this is the season the Canaries fly back to the Premier League. If the talks end with his name on the share register, Carrow Road will have another reason to look up.
