The Old Board Formed A Pact To Stop Him Getting Control …
I remember the days of the old board, and the battle between them and Fergus for control. What younger fans might not remember is how bitter it was from the start, and remained so right up until the moment that Fergus snatched the power from them.
At first, when Fergus first showed up, offering to put £7 million into the club, the board was casually dismissive, and even arrogant towards him. But they had never come across anyone like Fergus before, and although he would later have a spikey relationship with the press – to say the least- at that point he was adept in using them to his advantage.
He ran a non-stop PR campaign about his plans and his offer, and that rattled those who were running our club. They had no plan of their own, but they liked their status and sometimes seemed to believe it was theirs by divine right.
They were not about to let a Canadian upstart usurp them.
It was a time of a lot of boardroom upheaval; the book charts it all quite brilliantly.
But finally the Kelly and White families came up with a way to lock Fergus and others out completely; they formed a voting pact which also bound each of them to only sell shares to the others … in doing so they thought they could prevent anyone from calling an EGM.
Thankfully, for Celtic fans, Fergus was a lot smarter than they thought he was.
Little by little he and his team chipped away on the outer edges until the crisis that broke the old board.
At that point Fergus was able to use the pact against its members; once the bank announced that they wanted paid, Fergus secured the support of a section of the board and because they held a veto on the transfer of shares they made it clear they would reject any effort by the White’s and Kelly’s to sell their shares to their own preferred candidates – the “anyone but Fergus” group led by the What Every Woman Wants shopping magnate Gerald Weisfeld.
Had the White’s and Kelly’s resisted at that point, the bank would have seized it all.
In the end, Fergus got the block he needed.
Fergus’ one regret was that breaking the pact meant that he had to eventually pay the Kelly’s and Whites for their shares, which he had vowed not to do with one of his most famous soundbites; that after bringing the club to the brink they would get “not one thin dime” from his pockets.
In the end, Fergus was a practical man and put aside pride and ego and did what was right for Celtic.