garry-cook

News that Manchester City CEO Garry Cook has sent an offensive email to Nedum Onuoha’s cancer-stricken mother is the latest in a very long line of gaffes from the former Nike executive. In recent times Cook, quite hilariously, has incorporated Uwe Rosler into the “Manchester United” Hall of Fame, accused AC Milan of “bottling it” when turning down City’s move for Kaká and revealed City’s transfer target list to Noel Gallagher on the back of a napkin. Classy stuff all round.

The latest gaffe has Cook (allegedly) emailing Onouha’s mother, Dr Antonia, mocking the doctor’s health. Dr Anthonia, who has represented her son throughout his fledgling career, had earlier sent Cook and City’s Director of Football Brian Marwood a message explaining that she would continue to negotiate her son’s new contract despite being “ravaged with cancer.”

“Ravaged with it!!” came Cook’s reply, addressed to “Brian”. “I don’t know how you sleep at night. You used to be such a nice man when I worked with you at Nike. G.”

Typical of the man, Cook denies sending the email, blaming instead an unnamed practical joker at the club. Dr Antonia has written to the FA and Premier League complaining about the club’s behaviour.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised though. After all, Cook, who has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, once told us that “comedy has always been at the heart of what this club [Manchester City] is all about.” How right he was.

Cook’s best gaffes

July, 2008 – Cook proclaims City owner Thaksin Shinawatra “a nice guy to play golf with” despite the former Thai Prime Minister being indicted on charges of corruption.

“Is he a nice guy? Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Has he got the finances to run a club? Yes. I really care about those three things,” said Cook, ignoring Shinawatra’s dubious human rights record when Prime Minister from 2001-2006.

“I worked at a company – Nike – where we were accused of child labour rights issues. I managed to have a career there for 15 years and I believed we were innocent of most of the issues. Morally, I felt confident in that environment. Morally, I feel comfortable in this environment.”

In February 2010 a Thai court found Shinawatra guilty on four counts corruption, seizing 50 per cent of the former Prime Ministers fortune, and freezing the rest.

January, 2009 – Cook accuses AC Milan of “bottling” a deal for Kaká when the Brazilian midfielder chose not to join Eastland’s Abu Dhabi revolution in a proposed £100 million deal.

“If you want my personal opinion they bottled it,” Cook told the BBC. “He clearly was for sale but we never got to meet with the player, the behaviour of AC Milan got in the way.”

Kaká joined Real Madrid later than summer.

November, 2009 – Cook is forced to write to 70 City fans with a grovelling apology after inducting Blue Nose legend Uwe Rosler into the City Hall of Fame with the words: “I’d like to welcome Uwe Rosler into the Manchester United Hall of Fame.” City fans were still booing Cook when Rosler stood up to accept the award. Cook fled the event early amid a volley of home-spun abuse.

January, 2010 – ahead of City’s 2010 Carling Cup semi-final against the Reds Cook boasts that City would reach Wembley “not if, but when, we beat United again”. Caught on tape at New York’s Mad Hatter Bar, Cook went on to boast that City would become the “biggest and the best” football club on the planet. United won the semi 4-3 on aggregate.

March, 2010 – Cook engages in a stand-up row with Everton supporter George Downing in the Eastland’s directors box, prompting the Merseysiders to demand a formal apology. Everton beat City 2-0, with the row starting after Downing joined in the Evertonian’s chant of “2-0 and we’ve spent fuck-all.”

July, 2010 – Cook scribbles a list of City transfer targets on a napkin for singer Noel Gallagher’s benefit ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

“I just had a big, long lunch with Garry Cook and the revelations you lot are going to hear in the next month are going to blow your mind,” claimed Gallagher.

“Garry was writing out these names on a napkin, about who was going to be in the squad. He put it down on paper, and the 24-man squad we will have will be looking to win everything next season.”

August, 2011 – Cook claims that City’s £400 million stadium sponsorship deal with Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad is “the most important arrangement in the history of football.” The airline, which is controlled by City owner Sheikh Mansour’s half-brother, will pump money into the Blues for the next 10 years. Sadly for Cook the renamed Etihad Stadium means “Unity” or “United” in Arabic.

Hackers have broken into hapless Manchester City chief executive Garry Cook’s Wikipedia page, making it far more accurate than ever before. Branding Cook an “experience liar” who lives in a “f*cking dreamworld,” hackers lampoon the former-Nike executive who is universally disrespected in the football and media communities.

The page goes on to claim that time-traveler Cook, who regularly plays golf with Bananaman, personally spearheaded a bid for Pélé, before inventing the colour yellow.

Cook recently claimed that City will become the “biggest and the best” football club on the planet, before predicting that it was a matter of when, not if, his side would beat Manchester United in this season’s Carling Cup semi-final.

Selected highlights of Cook’s wiki page include:

Cook worked at sports were giants Nike for 12 years, working his way up to head of the Nike project “Brand Opportunism”, before leaving Nike in June 2008 to take over as CEO of Manchester City. Although he’d been a resident of the USA since 1985, and spent four years in Amsterdam, Garry currently lives in a f*****g dreamworld. He’s an experienced liar, with experience at covering up child slavery at Nike, making him ideal for a deluded Manchester City.

Cook says he moved to the U.S in 1996 and started working for Nike eleven years earlier in 1985, presumably using a DeLorean DMC-12 travelling at 88 miles per hour. He would spend 12 years at Nike where he would become president of the very successful Brand Jordan, Cook says that he worked very closely with basketball superstar Michael Jordan while working at Nike. But then, he also told everyone that his dad is Thor, Norse god of thunder.

One of Cook’s first tasks with his new club was to find a new manager after Sven Goran-Eriksson had been dismissed; he targeted Herbert Chapman of 1930’s Arsenal. After finding out that he’d been dead for 74 years, he reluctantly settled on Mark Hughes of Blackburn Rovers.

Cook’s new task was player recruitment, and he did deals for Tal Ben-Haim, Jo, Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta and Shaun Wright-Phillips but failed in a bid for Roy Race, who doesn’t actually exist.

After the 2009 January transfer window opened Cook sealed deals for Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy, Shay Given and Nigel de Jong. However, he failed in a world record bid to bring Pele to the club, blaming the breakdown in negotiations on Santos, stating, “If you want my personal opinion they bottled it, He clearly was for sale but we never got to meet with the player, the behaviour of Santos got in the way.” Santos replied by pointing out that Pele retired from football more than thirty years ago.

Cook also did much work away from transfers introducing the “I’m From Manchester, Honest” campaign where supporters of the club write in their opinions of why Stockport is actually in Manchester & that they shouldn’t go to watch County instead, these have then been placed around the interior of the stadium. Many fans have contributed to this including the likes of Ricky Hatton.

Along with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Cook has seen the complete overhaul of the club’s training base Carrington and scheduled a 2009 summer tour of the Moon where the squad met Marvin the Martian and played the Arctic Monkeys in the Vodacom Challenge.

He made a gaffe by welcoming Uwe Rosler to the Manchester United Hall of Fame instead of the Manchester City Hall of Fame and was booed by Manchester City fans, although that didn’t actually happen because City fans are the most loyal in the world and never boo. He wrote apology letters to 70,000,000,000,000 Manchester City supporters clubs.

Cook is married to Girls Aloud and is a keen player of Golf amongst where he regularly competes against Adolf Hitler, Bananaman and Richard Blackwood. Garry invented the colour yellow.