Norwich City joint majority shareholders, Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones, have issued a statement following confirmation that Stuart Webber is set to leave the club.
When Stuart came to our home in early March to inform us he wanted to leave at the end of his contract we were devastated - whilst we obviously respected his decision. In our 28 years of serving this great football club we have never worked with such a talent.
The list of his achievements is endless: principally, how it is that a self-funding club has managed to achieve so much in six short years? Two promotions, two trophies. Signing the very best and highest-scoring championship striker - on a free! - not to mention signing Buendia for peanuts and selling him for millions. And altogether bringing in a grand total of £80 million plus profit and astute add-on deals we are yet to benefit from player trading.
By all accounts we are one of the first English clubs to employ South American scouts with Brexit threatening the European market. Add to that a state-of-the-art football academy and, over the six years, on average 24 per cent of minutes per game in which academy players have featured. He has also brought in a hugely talented team of staff at all levels in the training ground.
We personally owe him a great deal. He has always alerted us when staff or wives have babies or bereavements so we can be in touch, arranged for us to entertain injured players and their families before matches and sometimes asked us to attend persuasive dinners with their agents.
In terms of unity and mutual support we are a completely different football club to the one he joined in 2017.
Stuart Webber has been an outstanding servant to this football club and built a strong foundation for the future. We are very sad to lose him, owe him much gratitude and want to wish him all the very best for the future.
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