Football Pariah #171: Garry Cook

There’s plenty of deluded idiots in football, and they’re not all on the pitch.

My own personal favourite deluded football idiots at the moment are Richard Scudamore (obviously), Rafael Benitez and Harry Redknapp.

Yesterday I read this fantastic post at twohundredpercent, and it sent shivers down my spine.

Ladies and gentleman, introducing Manchester City Football Club’s ‘executive chairman’, Garry Cook.

Once you’ve read twohundredpercent’s post and this here humble blogger’s take on it, it’ll come as no surprise that Mr Cook is a Birmingham City supporter. It accounts for his intellectual footballing capacity being equivalent to that of a lobotomised baboon.

It all stems from this interview with Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph. Cook shows himself up consistently with continuous nonsense about the future of Manchester City, the ownership of Dr Thaksin Shinawatra and general marketing and money-centric tosh.

But it’s one comment I want to speak about. It’s his blueprint for the future of the Premier League:

“If you could central-entity the top 10 teams to create a global empire called the Premier League, I would sacrifice my own club [Birmingham City] into another division for that. Do Saudi Arabians want to buy Stoke City?

“Or do they want to buy Newcastle, Villa, United, City? There are 10 clubs. I’d like not to have promotion and relegation. There’s an emotion around those battles but the dynamics by which fans can get their kicks can change.”

Telling, isn’t it. This man would do endless damage to the club he ‘supports’ (regardless of the fact that they’re not even in the Premier League) in order to close the Premier League off and market it around the world. He’d do away with the Premier League as a body, and let the club owners run it for their own wealth.

Besides which, what do you Stoke fans think of these comments?

I oppose this proposal on ALL counts. Cook is clearly not a football man. He is working for a [removed by my lawyers] with seemingly no remorse. And football needs to get back to basics, not continue on this tragic path to global obsolescence. Sooner or later, most of us will ditch our Premier League clubs out of frustration. But not because of the beliefs of the likes of Garry Cook.

Mr Cook, have some respect for the supporters. We are not simply buying a commodity. You know it, we know it. So remember that when you try to promote football abroad, the bottom will fall out of the market at home. And then there will be no commodity. Think on.

As for the use of ‘central-entity’ as a verb…

(Photo Credit: Sky Sports)