Most Hated Men in Football – Part 7

Garry Cook – Manchester City

Garry Cook of Man City – an obvious addition to the list of the Most Hated Men in Football.

The name Garry Cook does not role off your tongue as easily as the names Robinho, or Kaka, or even Joleon Lescott. Garry Cook is the chairman of Man City, and he’s the man that Shinawatra annointed 18 months ago to make Man City the main football club in Manchester.

Cook may be an intelligent guy, we do not know. He certainly had reasonable success at Nike for many years. But clearly the guy cannot read. The FA Premier League has a rule which applies to all clubs and states very clearly, “no club shall directly or indirectly induce or attempt to induce any employee of another club to terminate a contract of employment with that other club or directly or indirectly approach any such employee with a view to offering employment without the consent of the other club.”  We all know this as the prohibition against “tapping up”. All of us except Garry Cook that is.

Garry started his exploits by stealing Robinho from under the nose of Peter Kenyon at Chelsea. Fair enough. He then rubbed AC Milan the wrong way by making moves on Kaka during last January’s transfer window, and inferred the people from AC were a bunch of yokels.

Most Hated Men in Football.

He opens the summer season by sending Mark Hughes off to Dubai in late June to romance John Terry. John Terry‘s head was turned, no doubt about that. Money talks, even to a ferverent badge kisser. Getting a “no” from Chelsea (remember Cook made moves on Terry during the January window also) was not enough. He went back to the trough again and again until Chelsea had to buy off Terry.

Cook then stepped on the minnows at Everton by tapping up Lescott. Not a very good player, but good enough for Everton‘s back line. Cook used everyone and his grandmother to turn Lescott, who finally put in a written transfer request. It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Everton got an extraordinary price for Lescott (some £22 million) and they will hopefully put it to good use. Good for them, although you have to criticize Everton Chairman Bill Kenwright who didn’t have the balls to file a tapping up claim against Man City.

Where does Cook go next? What are the odds on Rooney crossing over to the Eastlands after Coleen has a pleasant (but secret) lunch with Cook? We can’t wait for the January transfer window.