Today I’m going to take a deep dive into Desmond’s impromptu question and answer session with the club’s in-house media team yesterday.
Those who wanted to take solace in it will have found what they wanted. Those who want to accuse the board of dragging its feet got what they expected.
The rest of us, who simply wanted information, got none of that.
What we did get was a reminder that Celtic is run as a dictatorship.
When an interview from a mere board member is treated as a matter of great import, you know something is amiss, especially when that board member never attends board meetings and never goes to the AGM.
Dermot Desmond runs Celtic.
Everyone I know believes that. Desmond’s interview yesterday more or less confirms it.
Who else but the man who runs things could endorse his own chairman as if the guy was a mere functionary only there to put a public face on a company and check the occasional box or two?
That’s what Desmond did yesterday.
What it reveals to us all, again, is that this is the decider.
This is the guy the rest of the board allows to run roughshod over all of them.
When the media writes that the decision over the next manager will be his to make, nobody at Celtic Park demurs. When it is presumed that Lennon stayed in post as long as he did because Desmond had his back, no-one contradicts it.
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The board exists to rubber stamp his decisions, and we should not be in a position like that, where our club is run as a billionaires plaything.
We don’t even get the traditional benefits that go with that … this guy hasn’t put his own money behind Celtic in nearly 20 years.
There are people who like Desmond and believe that he has been a stable force for this club.
They are entitled to that view.
A look back at the last 20 years shows more ups than downs and a haul of trophies that nobody could have realistically expected, and in particular in the last five years. But even they have to admit that having one man run the club the way Desmond does is fraught with danger. What happens if – as happened here – his judgement is off?
What happens is he, for whatever reason, starts repeatedly making bad decisions? Either because he’s out of ideas or because the game has moved on?
If Dermot Desmond was struck by a bolt of lightning tomorrow, the club would be in the hands of the people who have allowed him to run it by phone and fax.
If they are content to let this happen, what do you think their personal qualities are?
We have a club filled with yes-men.
This is the real danger of having one man make all the key decisions; even if he’s getting it all right (and I don’t believe that) what happens if he’s no longer able to make those kind of calls?
Do you trust the spineless jellyfish to suddenly step up?
One man rule virtually guarantees you weak governance because it comes with a lack of oversight and these people surround themselves by sycophants and box checkers.
That’s precisely what the makeup of our board of directors is … and that is dangerous to the long term future of Celtic, and it’s why his suggestion yesterday that he fully intends to hang onto his shares is bad news for this club.
He has made catastrophic errors in judgement … some of them, he admits to in the interview but nobody will point the finger at him and say so.
There is no oversight worth a damn at our club.
The rest of the directors allow him untrammelled power and authority. Nobody holds him to account. They are gutless. Which means, essentially, that we will continue to be run according to the whims of this man.
Those who trust his judgement will find comfort in that.
I don’t find comfort in any scenario where a guy runs us from another country, only half interested in the day to day, who often reveals himself to be completely out of step with our wishes and views and who for all that is allowed to wield absolute power in terms of every key decision.