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Anorak News | Manchester City’s Garry Cook Is A Victim Of Football’s Cancer: Dr Anthonia Onuoha’s 11 Months Of Pain

Manchester City’s Garry Cook Is A Victim Of Football’s Cancer: Dr Anthonia Onuoha’s 11 Months Of Pain

by | 7th, September 2011

MORE on that message sent from Manchester City Chief executive Garry Cook’s email account to Dr Anthonia Onuoha, mother of City defender Nedum Onuoha. The email did the undoable and made light of the woman’s cancer. Dr Onuoha, you will recall, found it necessary to speak of her cancer in an email to City’s football administrator Brian Marwood in the context of negotiations over her son’s role at the club – she also acts as his agent.

She said her body was “ravaged with cancer and ongoing chemotherapy but my intellectual  and mental capacities remain fully functional…”

Two weeks later she received this email singed “G”:

“Brian. Ravaged with it!!……I don’t now how you sleep at night. You used to be such a nice man when I worked with you at nike.”

Dr Onuoha was upset by this pathetic and crass reply. Eleven months later she told media:

“When I opened up my e-mails and saw the message, it was the worst day of my life, even worse than being diagnosed with cancer.”

Eleven months after the worst day of her life the woman complained to the Premier League and the FA. She added:

“I just cried and cried for hours. I’m critically ill and at that point I was undergoing chemotherapy. I was just so shocked but I couldn’t tell Nedum or any of my family because I didn’t know how they would react.”

But now she can tell him. And she can tell you. What changed? Has she got better? We don’t know.

Nedum Onuoha remains on City’s books. He earns £38,000-a-week. He’s on the bench and unlikely to play much. He could have been transferred to Everton or Sunderland. But he wasn’t. Rumours are that the buying clubs didn’t want to match the player’s wages at City – and City would not make up the shortfall. So he stays at City on his big salary.

Is that why we have heard only now about this email horror? Is the cancer the stick that beat Garry Cook and Manchester City? There is no coming back from cancer – it’s the big taboo. Mocking a cancer sufferer is viewed as a universal low. The cancer sufferer is a victim. They cannot be anything else. Whatever else has gone before, the cancer sufferer demands our sympathy. Take Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. He murdered 270 people in and over Lockerbie. He was released from jail compassionate grounds. He has cancer. Calls to have him sent back to jail in Scotland are met with cries of, “But he has cancer.” Cancer can do that.

Add to this the rumour that Dr Onuoha talked about her son’s career with Kia Joorabchian, the agent who fixed it for Carlos Tevez to move to City from Manchester United. Joorabchian denies it:

“Contrary to reports in some of the newspapers this morning, I do not act for or represent the footballer Nedum Onuoha of Manchester City. I have not met the player or spoken to him at any time.”

He and and Cook do not get on. In 2010, the agent told media:

“Garry Cook thinks he is bigger than Carlos Tevez. He is trying to make this an issue between him and me when it should be nothing of the sort. He might feel that he is a very important person but he isn’t. Me and him aren’t important enough. It’s about Carlos and his relationship with the club. City say they have emails saying this is all about money. They made Carlos a very generous offer which he rejected and there are many reasons for that. But I can tell you that there is no financial reasoning behind Carlos’ decision. They can publish the emails if they want to but they have to do it in their correct chronological order and then everyone will see we have acted in a professional manner and have nothing to hide.”

Emails? Oh, the irony that an email should now trouble Garry Cook.

Cook says he is innocent. He says he is the victim of a prankster.

You can now study the rest of the email that triggered the unseemly spat:

“I seem quite certain this has been twisted and she (Dr Anthonia Onuoha) has made the mistake on both the agent acting on their behalf (Sunderland) and the terms. You’ve handled this very well.”

Bit odd that the email hoaxer praised Marwood’s work. Buy, then, it takes hacker to think like a hacker.

The long and short of it is that Cook says he is the victim of a hacker; Dr Onuoha is the victim of cancer; Nedum Onuoha earns a fortune; and a crass unfunny joke about a woman’s illness shines a dim light into the mad world for Premier League football…



Posted: 7th, September 2011 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink