http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... ok-3124483
When the chapter on the most successful period of Manchester City’s history is written, Garry Cook should feature prominently.
Names such as Roberto Mancini, Sergio Aguero, Yaya Toure and Manuel Pellegrini will all be integral to the story – and deservedly so.
But everything City have recently won – and are yet to achieve – was only made possible because Cook sold Sheikh Mansour a dream that dragged the club from the brink of bankruptcy to a journey which has taken the Blues into football’s elite.
“I would never lay claim to being the saviour of Manchester City,” said the man who wasn’t known for bouts of understatement during his rollercoaster three-year ride at the Etihad.
But that’s exactly how Cook should be remembered.
Yes, there were the PR gaffes, such as welcoming City legend Uwe Rosler into the Manchester United Hall of Fame at a supporters' club dinner. And many fans didn't believe the former Nike marketing man when he told them in 2008 that City would not just take on bitter rivals United, but the entire world.
When Cook mistakenly sent an email to the mother of Nedum Onuoha in 2011, which appeared to mock her battle with cancer, he resigned – just four months after City had won the FA Cup.
He says he was left “heartbroken, emotionally wrecked” when he lost the job that had already cost him his marriage.
Yet Cook is still held in such esteem inside the corridors of power at the Etihad that he has been invited to watch City's Champions League tie with Barcelona next week from the comfort of the heated seats in the directors' box.
And no doubt, he will cast his mind back to May 2008, when he took up Thaksin Shinawatra’s offer to quit his role in charge of Brand Jordan at Nike to become City’s chief executive.
It didn't take him long to discover that the former prime minister of Thailand was too beleaguered by accusations of human rights abuses and fraud in his homeland to be concerned by the state of his Premier League investment.
“It took me about 10 days to inform Shinawatra that he had no option but to find a buyer for the club,” Cook revealed. “If he hadn’t taken my advice, then the consequences for City would have been absolutely disastrous.
“I have to be honest here, we were in an extremely bad and precarious place. We were standing on the edge of the precipice.
“The model being used wasn’t sustainable. For example, we were leveraging money against future television revenues to put deposits down for new players.
“That, in itself, is a dangerous position to be in. But it was just the tip of the iceberg.
“It got to the point where John Wardle, the former City chairman who had sold the club to Shinawatra, was lending us money to pay the wages.
“John was an integral part of keeping City afloat. But, even with his generosity, City were, quite literally, just moments away from it all going horribly wrong.
“Thankfully, I was able to sell Sheikh Mansour – or at least the people who work for him – the dream I had for the club when I decided to leave Nike.
“It was a perfect storm. City couldn’t have been in a worse situation and Abu Dhabi was looking to invest in a Premier League football club as a vehicle to promote the nation."
More than £1billion has since been spent transforming a club that had become synonymous with glorious failure. But Cook soon found out that throwing money at problems that had dogged City for decades wasn't the only solution.
He also had to win the hearts of minds of those people who already had a huge emotional stake in the club.
“I still have the Power Point presentation that I made to executives of the Abu Dhabi United Group,” Cook added.
“There were three other clubs who Abu Dhabi were looking at, but we ticked all the boxes: We could deliver the name Manchester - and I admit that I unashamedly used the global recognition of our rivals Manchester United to push our cause; we could deliver the name City - something that could become a powerful brand - and we could also deliver a fantastic stadium surrounded by 200 acres of land that was ripe for development.
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini (L) looks on with Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak (C) and Chief Executive Garry Cook during the FA Community Shield match City boys: Cook (right) with title-winning boss Roberto Mancini (left) and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak
"I addressed men of real intelligence and insight who recognised the potential of Manchester City. They knew the dream I had was realistic."
He added: "It was ironic that I had a much harder task convincing the people who were working at the club and even many of City’s magnificent supporters.
“When I went to the Burnage branch of our supporters’ club to tell them that we would beat United and that one day we would win the Premier League and regularly compete in the Champions League, they looked at me like I was a madman.
"Employees who worked for the club used to celebrate when we had reached the 40 points needed to stay in the Premier League. So there was 35 years of failure to address. We had to change the culture of the club and and rebuild a lot of the existing infrastructure.
"It had to be revolution rather than evolution and I know I upset a lot of people with some of the things I said.
"We always strived to stay close to our roots, not to forget the history of the club, even though at times that history was about failure. But we also had to draw a line under looking back sentimentally about the bad old days. It had to be year zero.
"I came from an American culture. I came from a great company like Nike, where we never once worried about what adidas were doing. We looked at what Disney were doing. So when I came to Manchester City and I was told that Manchester United were the team we had to challenge, I didn't stop for a second to think about how we could emulate what they were doing at Old Trafford - the clubs I set my sights on were Barcelona and Real Madrid.
“While other people kept talking about whether we could become bigger than United, I wanted us to become bigger than Barcelona.”
Cook is currently the executive vice-president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, tasked with promoting mixed martial arts tournaments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
He owns properties in London and Las Vegas, but he calls Manchester home - despite the emotional scars he carries from his time at City.
“I’m proud of the work I did at City,” he said. “Emotionally, I suffered, but, professionally I was the luckiest man in the world.
“I lived the job for 24-hours a day. I breathed it, I ate it, I slept it.
"My kids were bullied at school because of who I was and my wife wanted to move the family back to America. I wanted to see the job through and it cost me my marriage. It was like having a lover.
“I did make mistakes and one huge error of judgement cost me my job. I offered my resignation because I didn’t want to embarrass the club, but I was heartbroken, emotionally wrecked.
“My family are back in Portland, Oregon, while the place I call home is just outside Manchester, in Cheshire, because I fell in love with this part of the world.
“Of course, I have regrets, but I think I helped in some little way to help Manchester City make history.
“I don’t think what we did will did will ever be done again.”
Yaya Toure is the true talisman of Manchester City’s emergence as a major footballing force.
Ex-City chief executive Garry Cook lavished a fortune on players in the aftermath of Sheikh Mansour’s 2008 takeover.
Cook sanctioned a £32m deal for Brazilian superstar Robinho and he landed Carlos Tevez the next year.
But Cook rates getting Toure as the best piece of business he ever did – and insists the Ivorian didn’t leave Barcelona for the £200,000-a-week wages.
“Yaya Toure was the one player who became the catalyst for change at the football club,” said Cook.
“He has become City’s talisman. The popular perception is that we signed Robinho and Carlos Tevez to attract other players to the club.
“But both of those guys were in it for what they could get rather than what they could do for City.
“Yaya was different. He came and said, ‘I’m going to make this club great’. He was THE ONE. After we signed him, every top player began to see the possibilities at City.
“David Silva, for example. If we hadn’t signed Yaya, I don’t think David would have come.
"Once we signed Yaya, all the others followed. He was like a Pied Piper."
Kaka regrets snubbing City
Garry Cook insists he was right to label AC Milan “bottlers” for reneging on a deal to sell Kaka to City five years ago.
And former City chief executive Cook says the Brazilian ace has since admitted to him that he regrets not completing a world-record £100m transfer to the Etihad. He was sold to Real Madrid instead that summer, and is now back at Milan.
Cook was slammed for his handling of negotiations, but claims to have hard evidence that proves the move was done until Milan owner - and Italian prime minister - Silvio Berlusconi blocked the deal to boost his political standing.
Cook said: “I received a lot of criticism for saying that AC Milan bottled it over Kaka – but there is no other way to describe it.
"I've still got the documentation that confirmed Milan had agreed to sell the player to us. In fact, I have got a picture where I am holding up a City shirt with Kaka on the back with Milan CEO Adriano Galliani. That's how far we had got.
"But it was clear they had underestimated how selling Kaka would upset the fans and when I went to negotiate with the player's father about terms, it was cleat something wasn't right. They started making the most outrageous demands. There was no way we could meet those terms and I remember asking what the hell was going on.
"When I saw television pictures of Kaka stood on a balcony waving a Milan shirt over his head, I knew it was time to get out of there."
Cook added: "My belief is that Berlusconi recognised a PR opportunity. Mr Berlusconi is a skilled politician and it seems that he saw a chance to make some political capital for himself with the people of Milan.
“Milan agreed to sell Kaka to us. When they saw the negative reaction of the fans, they went back on their word.
"I later saw Kaka at Robinho's wedding. He admitted that maybe he should have signed for City and that maybe we could try for him again. I told him that ship had sailed.
"I recently met Kaka again at a UFC event and this time he admitted that he deeply regretted not signing for City."
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