She oversees its sports teams’ business operations, which has included the Dallas Stars hockey club and the Texas Rangers baseball club alongside the half share of Liverpool FC.

She has been executive vice president and general council of Hicks Holdings since 2004.

Both Mr Ayre and Mr Nash were copied into Mr Hicks’s second response to Mr Horner which contained the worst language.

The club has so far made no comment on the incident, but said neither Mr Ayre nor Mr Nash had received Mr Horner’s original email.

Fans have continued to express their disappointment at the way Hicks Jnr behaved.

Mr Horner called for his resignation before it came at 11am yesterday.

He said: “I was polite and I offered no personal view on the article.

“The damage was done by Hicks’s two initial emails and the apology I received later in the day was hollow and probably a PR exercise.”

He said the Tom Hicks Snr and George Gillett reign was “nothing short of disastrous”.

“They have proved time and again they are not fit and proper custodians of this special football club which means so much to people around the world.”

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