City chief Cook fighting for his job over email to Onuoha's cancer-stricken mother
Manchester City chief executive Garry Cook was hanging on to his job by his fingertips after claims he sent an insulting email to the cancer-stricken mother of defender Nedum Onuoha.
City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak is trying to establish the exact chain of events that led Cook to gravely insult Onuoha's mother during an email exchange dating back to last October.
Claims: A vile email was said to have been sent from Manchester City chief executive Garry Cook's account to Nedum Onuoha's mother
But it is understood that Cook, who is currently in America with his family, is facing an uphill fight to save his £1.8m-a-year post after an episode that has left the club's owners in Abu Dhabi deeply embarrassed.
'When I opened up my emails and saw the message, it was the worst day of my life, even worse than being diagnosed with cancer,' Mrs Onuoha told The Sun.
'I couldn't understand how anyone could behave like that. I'm critically ill.
'I cried and cried for hours."
Cook has endured a history of embarrassing moments during his three-and-a-half years at City but none so damaging as the revelation that he appeared to mock Mrs Onuoha's illness in an email apparently intended for the club's football administrator Brian Marwood.
It emerged yesterday that Dr Anthonia Onuoha entered into an email exchange with Cook and Marwood last year during a time when she was acting as her son's agent.
In one message, she revealed that she was battling cancer and said she was 'ravaged' by the disease. Dr Onuoha was horrified to receive an email back from Cook, seemingly intended for Marwood, in which the former Nike executive appeared to make fun of her situation.
Cook's email said: 'Brian . . . Ravaged with it! I don't know how you sleep at night. You used to be such a nice man when I worked with you at Nike.'
Dr Onuoha later received another message from Cook claiming his email account had been hacked while he was on holiday and stating that 'disciplinary action is currently underway regarding one of our employees'.
Out of favour: Onuoha spent last season on loan at Sunderland and has not featured for City so far this term
Yesterday, however, City could not confirm that a staff member had indeed been disciplined and it also emerged that Cook's original email contained the signature line 'sent from my iPad', something that would appear to suggest it had been sent from his own personal device.
It is understood Dr Onuoha has written letters of complaint to the FA and the Premier League. Neither are expected to take action, believing the matter to be a personal one between the two parties.
Nevertheless, the young player's mother is believed to have also written to City chairman Khaldoon asking for an explanation and an apology.
It is the threat of the sack from his own club that was hanging heavily over Cook last night. Cook has impressed City's Arab bosses since they inherited him from previous owner Thaksin Shinawatra three years ago, despite the fact he has endured a difficult relationship with manager Roberto Mancini.
However, reputation is everything to the Arabs and as City released a short statement indicating that a 'board-led review' was under way last night, it appeared that Cook was facing an increasingly desperate struggle to survive.
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