Dermot Desmond And His Corrupt Global Web Of Finance.
Every time one of those stories about disclosures of the tax affairs of the rich and famous appears in the press, Sevco fans wet their pants over the possibility that those tales will ensnare our own largest shareholder, Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond.
From the Panama Papers to the Paradise Papers, every one of those breaking news bulletins has had the super-sleuths of the Scottish media, who took months to find out Craig Whyte was not a billionaire himself, swing into action alongside them.
And aside from a minor league story about an airplane company, they’ve produced exactly nothing.
The fantasy persists; that one day they will do what international institutions and all the investigative journalists and Ireland have failed to, and link Dermot Desmond to some nefarious scheme for which there is no legal defence. And that someone a trail of breadcrumbs will lead from there to Celtic Park and to our spectacular undoing.
It will never, ever happen.
Forget that Desmond has so many lawyers working for him that it would make the Sevco squad look small by comparison. Forget that he has survived more brushes with the legal authorities than John Gotti did. Desmond is a guy who doesn’t need to gild the lily or break the rules to make and hold onto a fortune. He’s smart, capable, ruthless and brilliant. He can spot opportunities where others wouldn’t have a clue. His deal to buy London City Airport was labelled insane; he made a massive profit on it and showed everyone he knew best after all.
On top of that, Dermot Desmond does not finance Celtic.
I get tired repeating that to these muppets.
We are not dependent on his wealth. Our club exists wholly separate to him.
If he was removed from the equation we would lose expertise and gravitas … but not actual money.
Not only is the man clean, but we wouldn’t pay a price even if he wasn’t.
Not only would an investigation have to find that stuff, and a jury convict on it, we wouldn’t suffer even if they did.
