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Celtic Shareholders And The Board Are Set To Go Head To Head Over Resolution 12.

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On Friday night, a story broke late in the evening regarding the forthcoming AGM, and Celtic’s decision not to further support the team behind Resolution 12. The guys want this issue punted upstairs to UEFA to adjudicate once and for all. Celtic claim UEFA is not interested in the affair.

The Requisitioners don’t believe that for a minute.

I am torn over this in a way, in part because I believe the club has probably done more than most people are aware. But I also know that they haven’t done all that they could. They led those lads on as well, by telling them “find us the smoking gun” when they never intended to use it.

The truth is, I reckon they thought the Resolution 12 guys would poke around some, hit the wall and then move on.

They never reckoned with these folk staying the course.

I’ve seen all the evidence now, and the smoking gun is real.

It’s there.

A fraud was committed here, a fraud against our club. And because the shareholders are entitled to a dividend in a good financial year they have a solid argument that this fraud potentially cost them money … and the club’s legal responsibility to look after them is why this dragged on so long.

The Resolution 12 guys deserve the highest praise. They never gave up on this, even after it became clear that the club wanted them to, and after the club itself had done so. We owe them a debt of gratitude and that’ll be true whether they succeed in getting anywhere with this or not. There are a couple of them who suspect the only obstacle to getting a result is now Celtic itself, and there’s a part of me that wholly sympathises with that view.

I always believed this matter should have been taken out of the board’s hands some time ago. They clearly didn’t want to progress the matter, and at that point the guys should have taken all the evidence they had collected and dumped it in the hands of the fraud squad. That’s where it belongs, and of course the clock may have run down on that because of when the statute of limitations kicked in. As far as putting it in their hands goes, this may be as dead as Rangers.

The question is, what now?

Celtic wants this issue voted down at the AGM which means they want it buried. People can allege whatever they want about Celtic’s reasons for not driving this forward – I do believe that the Five Way Agreement, the scandalous document on which so many of Scottish football’s ills are tied up in is one of the problems here. I reckon we were far more involved and had greater knowledge of that than Celtic ever let on. Our board has never wanted to take this on.

But recriminations and allegations aside, this matter either moves forward or the AGM in November is where it dies. If the club is washing its hands of it and the law won’t touch it, and UEFA won’t accept any complaint which comes from the fans, where does that leave us?

Understand, we can get down and dirty with the recriminations until we’re all blue in the face. But that won’t resolve this issue. That won’t take us forward when this thing is stuck in mud. I’m interested in solutions, in how to keep this moving.

In the last few years I’ve heard as many conspiracy theories from our own support as I have from those at Ibrox, including a few beauties about how our board want Sevco to win a league title to protect the “Old Firm” brand … that some people believe such arrant nonsense is a tragic fact, although it’s plainly an idea fit only for the lunatic ward.

At some point, the Resolution 12 guys will either take this outside of Scottish football or the issue will die here.

The only way that this will go beyond our national game is if Celtic pushes it there … but we appear to have no appetite to do so.

If Celtic will not do it willingly, can they be compelled to do it?

That means pressure being put on them, by the supporters, by the shareholders themselves. Is that where this is headed? To a place where The Requisitioners go to their lawyers and say that they believe that it’s the Celtic board itself who are standing in the way of a final denouement?

If that’s where this is headed, then they may have to sue their own club.

Do not rule that out.

The possibility has always been there.

These guys have shown good faith here.

They’ve trusted the board to get this done. The board has messed them about for years … if they decide that this is a violation of the Celtic hierarchy’s fiduciary towards them then legal action against Celtic becomes more than just a theoretical possibility … it becomes likely if not certain.

I said in a previous article that the board would have one last chance to put this matter right, and to give these guys the support they were entitled to expect.

That our board has refused to engage with them properly, and rejected that opportunity, means locking horns with these formidable people who have gotten much further than the club expected … or perhaps wanted.

One way or another, this isn’t over yet, and not by a long way.

Celtic may not want to act but they can still be forced to.

Should The Resolution 12 Team Consider Suing Celtic For Failing To Support Them?

Yes

Yes

No

No

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