“I ain’t moving ’till the baliff comes ….” – The Police.
Here’s the thing with being an absentee landlord;
If you aren’t watching everything then don’t be surprised to come back one day and find out that there are rottweilers shitting all over the garden, parties going on in the house, broken windows on every floor, a meth lab in the kitchen and that tramps have been living in the basement and pissed up the living room curtains. Only be surprised that you still have living room curtains in the first place.
Dermot Desmond likes it when he is promoted as the “decision maker” at Parkhead, but the truth is that he leaves too many of the decisions to other people, and to Lawwell in particular.
He has very little interest in the day-to-day running of the club, and that’s a problem because he’s filled it with spineless jellyfish who defer too much to the CEO.
So in Desmond’s absence, Lawwell has made every critical decision and has been allowed to grow over-mighty to the point where he believes that he is the walking embodiment of Celtic itself.
You can only blame Lawwell up to a point; anyone with his job, and unlimited authority, and no oversight whatsoever, might start to believe in his own omnipotence.
The real fault for that lies with Desmond for allowing it and for not dealing with it when it became apparent that it had become a problem, and it became apparent long before this season began.
The way Rodgers was undermined by Lawwell should have been a major warning to Desmond that the CEO had started, again, to overstep the boundaries.
But Desmond did nothing about it, except call both men to a meeting to tell them to sort the thing out. But by then the relationship was poisoned and Rodgers knew that Lawwell wouldn’t pay a blind of heed to it.
He proved it when he signed Maryan Shved, blindsiding Rodgers entirely in the January window before he left for Leicester.
Desmond can take some of the blame for Rodgers’ departure. He should have backed the manager over Lawwell, but his lack of engagement with goings on at Parkhead rendered that impossible.
Desmond doesn’t really care about Celtic; we’re a vanity project for this guy.
He is so disconnected from the reality of the club that he, as well as Lawwell, thought Lennon a suitable appointment.
This is the guy who praised Rangers during the liquidation crisis, and said that our club needed them.
He never attends AGM’s. He goes to one game in maybe a dozen.
It’s not that he’s absent as much as that he likes the idea of Celtic but not the reality of it. For that he leaves Lawwell in charge, and that has been disastrous. He says he wants to leave his shareholding to his kids.
They may or may not getting involved in stuff.
I actually don’t know what would be worse; that they might want to or that they might treat the club the way he does.
Desmond is number two on the list of who is to blame for this disgraceful season.
His own arrogance is encapsulated in the media leak that he would hold onto Lennon to spite us; no-one who genuinely cared about our club or its reputation would have done that.
No-one who shared the hopes and dreams of the support would have reacted in such a petty and plainly destructive fashion.
That shows his level of commitment; to harm us out of vindictiveness.
As far as I’m concerned the man is a disgrace and his legacy has been toxified.
Even a good decision on the next manager will not aid in its recovery.
It’s poisoned.
Not to worry though; he has the eternal gratitude of the Ibrox board.
He has made them look professional, and they are certainly more committed to their club than he is to ours.
If that doesn’t fill him with deep shame nothing will.