Ian Herbert: Cook's email was insensitive but is hardly grounds for his dismissal

It's not the vile message that should lead to City chief executive's downfall - only proof that he lied

Garry Cook has achieved a lot at Manchester City and he is highly respected within the club (GETTY IMAGES)

The Manchester City chief executive, Garry Cook, will not be removed from his position before next week unless he takes matters into his own hands and resigns.

City's IT staff are combing through email records and the human resources department, which Cook set up at the club, are examining his position. The club's Abu Dhabi owners may send staff this week to Portland, Oregon, to interview Cook, who will maintain a pre-planned period of holiday leave with his wife until early next week. He has not been suspended or placed on gardening leave.

To outsiders as yet unacquainted with the email exchange with Dr Anthonia Onuoha, whose fight against cancer was mocked in a message sent from Cook's iPad last October, it must sound as if the City chief executive has committed an act of gross irresponsibility. If City's investigations find against him, he will be guilty of sending an email, ridiculing Dr Onuoha's declaration that she was "ravaged with cancer and chemotherapy" and then lying by telling her that his computer had been hacked. Even if proven, these are not the actions which should send the man edging over the precipice into unemployment.

The email is excruciating and insensitive but the act of writing it is something many individuals might be capable of in the private seclusion of an office. The more serious issue under investigation – as yet unproven – is whether Cook tried to cover the error, after inadvertently sending the message to Dr Onuoha as well as his colleague Brian Marwood, by telling Dr Onuoha that his computer had been hacked. Coming clean on a vile and insensitive email would surely have caused Cook no lasting damage and might have kept the issue between the two of them. But how highly would that perceived deceit feature on the scale of lies in the game? Does it tarnish Cook irreparably in the eyes of City fans? Not by the evidence of fans' forums yesterday. Cook is arguably the most popular football club chief executive in Manchester.

Does it make Cook an individual who clubs and sponsors could not do business with? No. Divorce these alleged two actions from the current firestorm and neither make Cook incapable of continuing his job.

The picture is also scrambled by the year between the exchange of emails and their revelation. Why have they been made public now and by whom? The businessman Kia Joorabchian yesterday denied leaking the email but the delay does make the leak appear to be a purposeful attempt to damage Cook. The moral parameters would be clearer – and worse for Cook – if Dr Onuoha was so damaged by the message that she sought immediately to highlight his behaviour, as she saw it.

The question for the Abu Dhabis, if their investigation finds that Cook sent the email, is whether it is reflective of a behavioural pattern which they believe cannot be changed. Remember, one of their reasons for buying City was to enhance the reputation of the Emiracy. Employment law specialists belief that, if Cook is found to have sent the email after all, then an attempt to cover up for it, rather than the email itself, could see the Abu Dhabis conclude that he has brought City into disrepute and that he should be dismissed for an act of gross misconduct. "Anyone can send an email in error. Had Cook sent an email like that he could be accused of a lack of sensitivity," said Neil Johnston, of Field Fisher Waterhouse. "However, if Cook has lied in claiming that someone has hacked into his computer then that would be a more serious issue. That would convert a cock up into a fundamental issue of trust and confidence in the key public face of the club."

A decision on Cook should factor in what he has delivered to the club. His sometimes unpredictable persona is accompanied by a dynamic and unpredictable approach to the football business. He is hugely fan-focused and City's facilities are among the best in the Premier League. The development of a large part of east Manchester into the Etihad Campus was a masterstroke in City's attempts to meet the challenge of Financial Fair Play. His employees are messianic about him.

The names of possible successors are already circulating, though. David Potts, the chief executive of Tesco Asia, is understood to be an individual of whom Abu Dhabi thinks highly and he would fit with the Emiracy fondness of recruiting individuals from a non-football background. In Portland, Cook waits to learn if the email sent to Dr Onuoha was the most costly piece of business attributed to him.