The Celtic board created the Lawwell perception problem.

This morning, the ancient embarrassment who writes for the Sunday Mail put up his latest piece, making all sorts of comments about what Celtic needs to do over the summer and repeating Brendan Rodgers stuff that every Celtic fan site has already said. It was more ignorant nonsense, mixed with the appropriation of smarter people’s opinions and passing them off as his own.

But there was also a correction in there too—a correction about Peter Lawwell, who he said called him up the other day to complain about something he’d written in a column. Keevins’ claim is that he wasn’t stating his own view, but the view of a caller on that radio show of his.

If that’s all he was doing, I don’t see why he was printing a correction or retraction unless it’s because he’s weak and spineless.

This is a common thread when it comes to Lawwell these days. He doesn’t like the idea being out there—or being promoted or pushed—that he has some involvement in the club’s transfer policy. You know what I say to that? Too bad. People believe this, and they don’t need to be steered in the direction of it.

Look, I have my own views on this, and they are well known. But in fact, it doesn’t matter whether he’s involved in everything or involved in nothing.

From the outside looking in, people see that the former CEO is now the chairman of the board and many of them don’t see any lines of demarcation. Trying to explain to them that being at the top of the table confers no actual power is like trying to explain astrophysics to an idiot. It’s an exercise in futility.

The notion that he still has authority, and power, would be easier to dispel if he wasn’t, in fact, in a position of authority and power. The idea that he does not hold any sway over the day-to-day business of Celtic seems ridiculous to those people and it does not matter how many times he denies it.

Even the rawest student of politics, business or public relations could have seen that coming. The club’s perception problem is all the worse for this outcome having been so easy to predict beforehand. Those in charge of Celtic must have realised this.

They simply didn’t care. It is a bit rich for them to be complaining about it.

The people to blame for this perception are those who work inside Celtic—Lawwell included. It exists because from the outside, we look like a little private members’ organisation accountable to only a handful of people at the top. That problem wasn’t created by the Celtic blogs, the podcasts or the mainstream media. That problem was created by that handful of people themselves.

Look, he didn’t have to come back as chairman. The club didn’t have to appoint his former number two to his old job. The club didn’t have to appoint his son to be the head of the transfer policy.

If the people at Celtic didn’t want the Lawwell name connected to the club’s day-to-day running—and to the transfer business—then all they had to do was hire one of the dozens of other qualified candidates who would have loved to take the job as head of football operations. If people were concerned about the perception that the former CEO would be returning to the club to wield even more influence as chairman, they could have avoided it by picking a different one.

Celtic is a massive institution.

There would have been a line around the block to take on a position like that.

Those who defend it on account of Lawwell’s experience and knowledge also need to acknowledge that those are the very things which he denies bringing to the table when he claims not to be involved day to day … we could have picked almost anyone to sit in that chair if all the guy does is open and close the meetings.

You could have put someone from the mail office in that role instead and been just as satisfied with the result.

He needs to get over himself. He needs to stop acting like a petulant child and realise there’s nothing he can do about it.

I keep on saying perception has nothing to do with reality.

It could not matter less whether he’s involved in everything or if he does nothing. People believe what they believe, and it doesn’t matter how many bloggers or journalists get leaned on.

They see a guy who’s been at the club for over 20 years in a senior executive role, and for them the idea that he has no power—and exerts no influence—seems manifestly ridiculous.

You don’t have to be a PR expert or a former politico to see how this was going to play, and you know what else? It does him no favours having this sanitised version of himself in the press either.

Because every time he picks up the phone and makes demands of a journalist like this it reinforces the idea that this is somebody who believes he can impose his will on others.

A lot of people will conclude, rightly or wrongly, that if you weren’t in a position of authority, and didn’t hold real power, that no journalist would even take that call far less fall into line as you demanded. So in fact, this strengthens the very perception he’s supposedly trying to eradicate.

That perception will exist as long as he holds a senior position at Celtic Park.

There’s nothing he or anyone else at Celtic can do about that. A section of the fan base believes it. A section of the media believes it. A section of the fan media believes it.

The irony of ironies is that the more he pushes against it, the more convinced they’ll be. This is what comes from life in an ivory tower; you forget the rules that govern the rest of the world.