Retrospective: Peter Lawwell, Whatever You Once Were You Are No Longer “A Celtic Supporter.”

This article was originally published on 14 December 2020.

I believe in words. Words have meaning.

Words are important.

Peter Lawwell is too smart a man not to understand the meaning of words.

He uses them as weapons, so he understands them alright.

He understands context and how to construct an argument.

I thought Lawwell might announce his departure at the end of the season today; no such luck.

Lawwell will be at Celtic until he’s dragged kicking and screaming down London Road.

I thought we might see some humility today.

Instead it was complete arrogance and disregard for any opinion not his own.

I thought we might hear contrition for the disaster that this season has been so far.

Instead it was given a hand waive as a “bad eight weeks.”

This guy really does think he’s special.

He thinks he’s the best CEO in the country.

This guy gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night thinking he is Celtic.

Not in the whole history of our club has one single individual had such sweeping control over affairs at Parkhead, and he is well capable of doing more damage than any single individual ever has if he is allowed to continue to operate without restraint in the way he does.

Today Peter Lawwell dragged out a soundbite that was so similar to the one Neil Lennon came out with later that you have to believe that they scripted it.

As appeals go it is a heart-string tugging one but maybe it’s because of Rodgers and Tierney and others who’ve come before them that I get very cynical when I hear it.

But both men put a slightly different spin on the comments; Neil Lennon referred to himself as a Celtic fan. “I’ve been a Celtic fan all my life, and I’ll be a Celtic fan for the rest of my life,” he said.

Fair enough. I’ll give him that. It’s certainly true in his case.

Lawwell chose a different word. “I was born a Celtic supporter and I will die a Celtic supporter,” is how he chose to put it.

But that word doesn’t apply to Lawwell.

That word doesn’t remotely belong in the same sentence as Peter Lawwell.

Because a supporter is someone who gives.

Someone who contributes.

Whenever I use the word I use it in connection to the people who go to games and buy merchandise and subscribe to CelticTV and all those other things that pay for everything that goes on at the club. That’s different from being a fan.

We have fans all over the world, and their passion and love for Celtic is without dispute.

But they are not Celtic supporters in the fullest sense.

Peter Lawwell is definitely not a Celtic supporter.

He has spent the last decade taking from Celtic.

He talked again today about our ambitions and not for the first time called us a Champions League club.

But there is only one person at Celtic Park who earns a salary commensurate with that grand objective and that’s him.

He has sucked on the life-force of this club, like a fat, well-fed leech, for far too long.

What he earns as our CEO is obscene.

His interference in areas not his province is obscene.

His use of our club as a vehicle for his own self-aggrandisement and self-enrichment is obscene.

Lawwell intends to remain.

He intends that Lennon should remain.

Lennon is his mistake, his ghastly ego-driven error, his yes-man, his puppet on a string … in a sense, I am glad that Lawwell has chosen to bind their fates inexorably.

I just wish our season wasn’t inexorably tied around the pair of them.

Lawwell boasts on us having spent £35 million in the last year or so.

Well, I don’t know where this accountant is getting his figures from but if I were him, looking at the wreckage of our Europa League campaign and the humiliation it brought to us, as well as the League Cup exit, I would not be boasting on how much had been squandered in pursuit of those failures, as well as the larger one of ten in a row.

Which is to say nothing, of course, of the allegation that he has lied to all of us; fans, supporters and shareholders alike.

Lawwell has been at Celtic for far too long and if he’s determined to hang on our club is going to remain stuck in this pitiful place of short term thinking and low-quality options.

As long as Celtic remains this small pond, this ever expanding bloated fool will continue to be the biggest thing in it.

That’s how he likes it.

If we really want this guy out, we have to starve him out even if that means that the club itself takes a short-term hit.

It’s time some of our supporters tried being fans for a while.

We will all be better off for it.

Getting rid of this guy is the most important task we have now.

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