KILMARNOCK, SCOTLAND - MAY 15: Celtic Board members Peter Lawwell and Michael Nicholson during a cinch Premiership match between Kilmarnock and Celtic at Rugby Park, on May 15, 2024, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Tomorrow Celtic holds the AGM, and as we all know, it’s going to be a bit of a barn burner. Fans are about as angry as they’ve ever been, and the whole Green Brigade standoff isn’t making things any easier.
In fact, it’s making the whole atmosphere exponentially worse. It’s difficult to see anything other than a hostile reception for the board. However, their problems go much deeper than a furious support.
The bigger problem, by far, is that this board’s credibility is absolutely shot where it matters for running a successful football club.
Their reputations have been shredded in the wider football world. That is a problem of much greater significance than simply having some supporters raging at them. Not that angry fans aren’t a serious matter. However, when you sit on a football board, there are issues with far greater consequences than that.
Reputation is a fickle thing. Sometimes it’s more myth than reality.
There’s a perfect example of that in Stephen King’s excellent novella The Body, which became the wonderful film Stand By Me.
The story follows a group of boys trekking to see a dead body. Along the way they do a bit of myth-busting when they encounter Chopper, the feared junkyard dog. Every kid in the area has a horror story about this beast.
Yet when the boys finally meet Chopper, what stands before them isn’t the monster of legend. Instead, it is a skinny little yapper who’d be lucky to inflict more than a couple of nips. I’ve never forgotten that, because it captures how myths grow. They tower in the imagination long after the reality has ceased to justify them.
Our board has lived off exactly that sort of myth for years: a reputation for professionalism and excellence. Some of us always said you needed to look closer, because a lot of it was smoke. A lot of it was illusion. Much of what’s happened to Celtic in the last decade has been due to pure luck and the state of the club across the city. I always said these people would eventually be tested and found wanting. There really wasn’t all that much to them. They are second rate.
The summer was an eye-opener for most folk. It exposed them as hollow pretenders, not the cool-headed, professional operators we’d been told they were. We already suspected Nicholson was a busted flush. However, some still believed Lawwell held real sway. I used to think the whole “Dermot Desmond runs everything” line might be a smokescreen for others pulling the strings, using his name as cover. It’s obvious now that this theory was nonsense.
Nobody is going to forget what happened over the summer.
These people were ruthlessly stripped of their status, influence and authority by one man. Yesterday I said the worst thing he’s done is step out of the shadows and into the light. However, it’s more than that. His stepping into the light forced the others right off the stage. Consequently, there’s no way back from that.
In a few short months, Dermot Desmond has subjected these people to one of the deepest, most complete humiliations I’ve ever seen. He has dismantled whatever credibility they had left. Consequently, he’s shown them up as placeholders with no real influence.
We wondered for years why someone as articulate as Nicholson never gave interviews or made speeches or talked to the press, even though that’s part of the CEO’s job. Now we know it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. It’s because he wasn’t allowed.
If Lawwell has truly been reduced to the guy who hands out the pens at meetings, that’s down to the main shareholder. These people have been left with nothing. Club statements now go out unsigned, possibly because nobody wants to take responsibility. Also, possibly because nobody actually can. Who even issues these statements anymore?
The last one with a name attached was Desmond’s attack on Rodgers, and it was notable for the names that weren’t there.
People are comparing the state of our board to the Labour government: in office but not in power. It’s a perfect description. I don’t feel remotely sorry for any of them. They made their own mess. They allowed a single shareholder to run roughshod over every one of them, and the humiliation they’ve suffered this year is entirely their own doing.
The long-term damage to their reputations is deserved. It cannot be comfortable sitting in those seats right now, and it won’t get any better for them.
Tomorrow, when they face the wrath of the support, they’ll sit there as a collective with nowhere to hide and no way to escape scrutiny. Their individual part in the club’s decline might be small, but they are still part of the machine. They don’t design the policy. They implement it. They are functionaries, yet they take the heat.
As they sit at that meeting, they should think about where the man who put them in this position will be. He’ll be at home. He never attends these events. Also, he never subjects himself to scrutiny, not even once a year.
The difference this time is that he revealed his hand. He exposed how much power he wields and how deep his interference runs. Moreover, he stripped the board bare, revealing them as puppets. That’s bad enough when things are going well. However, it’s catastrophic in a bad year, and this has been as bad as any season in recent memory.
So tomorrow they’ll sit there as men whose reputations have been burned away. Their myths have been exposed. Not powerful figures striding the horizon, but men caught between two terrible forces: the one in Dublin and the one in the stands. Nobody comes back from this. Indeed, they’ve been exposed as hollow frauds.
Their authority is virtually nonexistent. They are a joke. Tomorrow they’ll take the flak while the man in Dublin practises his golf swing.
That, after all, is the role they play in his world. It was Lawwell who said the words that now come back to haunt him: you get what you pay for. Desmond must feel pleased, because as human shields go, these people must be worth every penny.
You forget that each one of Dermot Desmond’s appointees have lucrative remuneration. Since Peter Lawwell sold control and de facto ownership of Celtic to Dermot Desmond each man has received millions of pounds. Lawwell in salary, bonuses and dividends Desmond receives £200,000 a year in perpetuity ( !!!! ) A guaranteed dividend for ever.
The fact is Dermot Desmond owns Celtic. It’s his ball and he gets to do whatever he likes with it.
A NED that controls the business. The complete opposite of what a NED is legally supposed to do. His board members are his lackeys. All there for a jolly and a salary.
Desmond is no different to other owners such as Abramovich who own the club and they control the club. The difference is Abramovich bought the majority. Desmond controls the business but thanks to Lawwell, didn’t have to buy a majority shareholding.
Celtics customers are of no concern to Dermot Desmond, his son or his lackeys who manage the club in his absence.
What I cant fathom about this board is how they see their legacy. The Celtic family has a long memory. We still remember the heroes of long ago and sing about their legacy. We still remember the old board but even with their eventual demise, we recognise their master stroke in employing the great Jock Stein. But this crowd? The only legacy they are shaping for themselves is not one any man wants his children and grandchildren to remember. Their descendants will have to carry their names all their lives and when they say who they are the astonished reply will be, ‘are you related to that parasite that ruined the reputation of Celtic’. I would want my grandchildren to remember me with pride. So what are these guys thinking of, what goes through their tiny minds. Do they not care how their grandchildren will think of them. Are they actually human beings that dont care how they will be remembered, how people will spit at the mention of their names, how they will only be looked upon favourably by the other crowd. What a pitiful bunch of people, they are not even worthy of the name of men
“Consequently he’s shown them up as placeholders with no real influence”
Aye – And fuckin expensive, expensive yet useless ones at that as well !
He clearly runs the show. What I don’t understand is why he has shown his hand this season.
I wonder if BR martyred himself in order for this to come to light.
DD was being given all the passes of the absent landlord and the like to excuse him from blame for how the club is run.
It’s a self sustaining club he doesn’t get involved because he doesn’t need too & as Eddie says he gets his dividend every year.
I wonder if he will be there tomorrow with the thought of daddy is coming & will shut the moaning fans up.
I hope he is because reality may well slap him in the face hard enough to wake him up.
My other question is there are so many things said about the legalities / regulations of how a company must operate & behave. We don’t appear to follow these in any way so how is this not being investigated. Worse if it is what are the potential consequences for us.
Boycott some matches and stop buying merchandise,as for the league cup final, imagine what a message a boycott by the supporters would send to the board,this game is a showpiece,it would let DD know what the fans think of him and his lackeys,I know it’s hard on the team but losing a league cup is no big deal,it would be worth it to show up this shower of cnuts.
I seriously think the AGM will be a complete washout with nothing getting done.
It will be corporate waffle with a few “we are working on it”thrown in for good measure.
I truly think everyone attending will leave more frustrated than ever.
Just heard they haven’t even asked to speak to the supposed front runner for the managers job.
Celtic are being made to look unprofessional on all fronts.
This seriously has to change.
Also think DD has stepped in to protect his board and given them the chance to say “look it’s not us,we just do as we are told” so the fans back off them and go for the one person who can’t be touched and doesn’t care anyway.
Their thought will be change us and you just get more DD appointments.
It’s a plan that seems to be working as attention is heading DDs way more.
13 league titles in 14 seasons is unprecedented. Be careful what you wish for.
Cannot disagree with these figures Joe (13/14) but they did appoint Lennon who royally* fucked up ten in a row *(apologies for using that Scummy word royal)…
But they’ve been utterly APPALLING since January and by fuck have we paid for it this season for sure and probably will also pay come May 2026 !
Yes that’s true Joe but out of 13 league titles how much dross has there been in Europe,13 spfl titles is not that hard with the extra money Celtic has, even Lennon won 5 of them didn’t he.Most of the time the spfl is a one horse race apart from the COVID season but we need to improve in Europe because even winning another 10 titles no one outside of Scotland takes a blind bit of notice what Celtic have achieved , Europe is where it counts.
Mr green hun on to back the board.
This lot will just be as arrogant as ever, if and when pressed tomorrow. I don’t believe for one minute, that they see theirselves as answerable tae the Celtic support. Their big ego’s and self importance simply won’t allow it.
Celtic FC is heading for the rocks if the people who run the club don’t change course, Lawell and Desmond will go down as the two men who assisted the birth of The Rangers International FC [2012] and mismanaged Celtic FC so badly by showing no ambition and no imagination, whilst showing no respect for the Celtic fans, who they only see as gullible customers.
As an active Trade Unionist in the past, I’ve always recognised that there has to be mediation and compromise when disputes arise. It saddens me as a lifelong Celtic fan that this board are acting like corporate dictators and bullies towards the decent and faithful Celtic support.
Maybe I’ve been a little bit naive for an auld guy, but I actually hoped that this board would see the error of their ways with a few changes on the board and a change of tack starting in January.
It now looks as if they are doubling down and attacking the collective starting with the GB, I hate the thought of boycotts and starving the club of funds but this board are going down a path that could damage our club for years to come.
I understand the temptation to boycott and not spend money, but it accomplishes nothing. The bhoys we love suffer on the pitch, and we suffer by not being able to enjoy our bhoys and the cool Celtic kits. If I believed it would turn everything around, I might engage in this plan. But with today’s sponsorship deals and other monies hoarded over the years, it would take a long time indeed to make an impact on the board scum. I, like most sports fans across the globe, want to enjoy my team as an escape from the daily work grind. There will always be rich tyrants, I cannot stop that. To be honest, the people who run sports in America are largely entitled assholes too. There are DD’s everywhere.
I’m calling it now.
The AGM will last around 20 minutes and then descend into bedlam engineered by Celtic and then abandoned.
Security will be over the top and briefed to make the crowd look bad and take the blame.
Media lackeys also briefed to put the boot in shortly after with the usual pish.
You can call ma Euromillions numbers for tonight ThunbergsNooNoo after that prediction…
Fuck them – They can take today, that was coming down the pipe to the ‘Sabotage and Scupper Celtic’ shoes of bastards !
Change can only happen with the demise of the present board! For a group of people who purport to have the best interests of our great club at heart, they are outstandingly obtuse!
As a great man once said, “ “The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
We can only pray for a positive outcome! HH