Desmond has poisoned his legacy. He ought to face it and go.

There is a question about Dermot Desmond which I think is becoming harder and harder to avoid: what exactly is he still hanging onto Celtic for?

I don’t mean financially. I don’t mean in terms of influence or access or the sheer habit of being the most powerful man in the room. I mean in terms of legacy. He says he loves the club. But what if large parts of the club no longer love him back?

Because whatever Dermot Desmond once imagined his Celtic legacy would be, I don’t think that version survives anymore.

There was probably a time when he could have imagined being remembered as one of the great modern figures in the history of this club.

He arrived in an era when Celtic was still rebuilding itself after the catastrophe of the old board, and he has been there through decades of trophies, dominance, enormous commercial growth and a financial transformation which has left Celtic vastly stronger than every club we compete against domestically.

There is a version of that story which ends with supporters eventually saying that Dermot Desmond was one of the giants of Celtic’s modern history.

There is zero chance that that is how this ends now.

Outside the Friends of the Man, outside the little circle which seems determined to tell him that everything is wonderful, negative perceptions of Desmond have hardened to such an extent that it may now be almost impossible to change them.

He is not viewed as the man who built Celtic into everything it could be. He is increasingly viewed as the man who stopped it becoming everything it could be.

That is a devastating distinction, and once a perception like that becomes baked into the collective memory of a support, it is incredibly difficult to reverse. Another trophy does not fix it. Another strong balance sheet does not fix it. Another domestic title does not fix it, and another lecture about prudence certainly does not fix it.

Because the argument is no longer about individual decisions. It is about a governing philosophy. Every failed transfer window fits the pattern, every European humiliation fits the pattern, every time Celtic sits on money instead of using it to strengthen the football team fits the pattern, and every time the club seems more interested in explaining why something cannot be done than finding a way to do it, it fits the pattern too.

Every time somebody inside that boardroom behaves with contempt towards the supporters, that fits the pattern as well. That last point matters enormously because the AGM changed something else; no-one called Desmond can restore his name.

Ross Desmond sitting there and accusing sections of the support of being “bullies” while the meeting descended into chants of “sack the board” did not look like the beginning of a dynasty. It looked like the moment a possible one poisoned its own well before it had even properly begun. Everything he said that day reeked, from his attack on fans to his contention that spending to secure success in Europe was pointless.

You can inherit shares, money, access and a seat in the directors’ box. You cannot inherit legitimacy, and you certainly cannot inherit affection. Those things have to be earned. If Dermot Desmond ever imagined that his sons would one day inherit not merely his stake in Celtic but his authority within it, I think his judgement in sending his son to read out that prepared statement that day was abysmal.

The surname itself now carries too much baggage.

That is the irony.

He may have spent decades believing he was building a dynasty, but increasingly it looks as though he has handed his sons a cinder block and tied it around their ankles. They would inherit all the resentment attached to the name without inheriting the decades of success which at least allow their father to point towards trophies, revenues and financial strength.

All Ross Desmond inherits now is mistrust and outright hostility.

Celtic has seen this before. This club has had dynasties, real ones.

For much of the twentieth century, Celtic was dominated by the Kelly and White families. Boardroom control became hereditary. Shares moved through families, sons succeeded fathers and uncles, and the same names remained around the institution for generations.

By the early 1990s, those families had come to regard their position almost as a form of trusteeship, even as supporters increasingly believed the structure had become hopelessly outdated. They had history on their side too.

They had trophies, European glory and could point to Jock Stein, Lisbon and decades in which Celtic had been one of the great names of the game. None of it saved them when supporters concluded that the institution was faltering under them.

By 1994, the White-Kelly dynasty which had dominated Celtic for the best part of a century was finished. Fergus McCann arrived, the old board was removed and supporters celebrated outside Celtic Park as control passed into new hands.

That should be an uncomfortable piece of history for anyone who thinks longevity itself creates legitimacy, because it doesn’t. If anything, longevity can become the problem.

The longer a ruling group remains in place, the easier it becomes for it to confuse stewardship with ownership. The easier it becomes to believe that the institution somehow belongs to you because you have controlled it for so long, to dismiss dissent as ingratitude and to convince yourself that supporters simply do not understand how difficult your job is.

The old families fell into that trap. They believed, right to the end, that their history gave them the right to continue. The supporters eventually decided otherwise.

There is another historical lesson here too, and it comes from Fergus McCann himself. McCann did something almost unheard of amongst powerful men: he left.

He came in with a plan and told people roughly how long he intended to remain. He rebuilt the stadium, recapitalised the club, changed its ownership structure and then, after five years, walked away. His relationship with supporters during his time in charge was frequently difficult, but history has been extraordinarily kind to him precisely because he did not try to turn Celtic into his personal possession.

He understood something incredibly important. Celtic was not his. He had a job to do and, when he believed that job was done, he left.

That may turn out to be one of the biggest differences between McCann and Desmond. McCann understood that stewardship has an end point. Does Dermot?

Because what is left for him to achieve by staying?

If the objective is domestic domination, he has already seen Celtic dominate Scottish football for years.

If the objective is financial stability, the club has it.

If the objective is personal influence, he has exercised it for decades.

And if the objective is to create a family dynasty, that project looks increasingly toxic before the succession has even properly taken place. The only other legacy he can hope for is success in Europe … and it is his policies which prevent us getting there.

In fact, it appears to be his considered view that it’s impossible.

So, what is the point now? To stay and be despised more than the Kelly’s and White’s ever were? That’s the legacy he’s heading for.

Why not hand this club over? Why not move control into somebody else’s hands and oversee an orderly transition instead of clinging to a structure which is generating more hostility by the month?

There would be no shame whatsoever in accepting that the game has changed and that he no longer has the skill-set to take Celtic into the future. Football in 2026 is radically different from football in 1995. The demands of recruitment are different, the commercial environment is different, and data, analytics, sporting-director structures, global scouting, regulatory demands, supporter expectations and the sheer complexity of running an elite football operation have all changed beyond recognition.

There is no humiliation in acknowledging that Celtic now needs a different model. In fact, that could still be the final great act of Dermot Desmond’s Celtic career.

He could say that he has taken this as far as he can and that the club now needs a new generation of leadership. Then find it. Not another insider, another compliant executive or another person who merely understands how things are done here, but genuinely world-class people with their own ideas and ambitions.

Give them authority. Give them independence. Give them the ability to rebuild the football operation without having to ask permission from Ireland every time they want to take an ambitious decision. Then step away.

That would actually improve his legacy, perhaps dramatically, because in there is still a version of the ending in which Dermot Desmond becomes the man who knew when his era was over.

That matters because history is filled with people who destroyed their reputations because they could not recognise that moment. Political leaders do it, business leaders do it and sporting figures do it. They stay one year too long, then another, convincing themselves that the next success will restore everything and treating every criticism as proof that the critics are wrong rather than evidence that the relationship has changed.

Eventually departure no longer looks dignified. It looks overdue.

And sometimes, when it is forced, that is what people remember of you; not the years of rule but the way you were dragged screaming out the door. Long before you reach that point, every extra day in power takes something away from what you achieved before.

Maybe Desmond genuinely believes history will vindicate him. Maybe he looks at the trophy count, the cash reserves and the state of the club across the city and thinks supporters will eventually realise how lucky they were to have him.

Maybe he believes he is protecting Celtic from the kind of reckless ownership which has destroyed other football clubs, or sincerely believes that nobody else can be trusted with it.

If so, that is precisely the mindset which should worry us. Long-term rulers often end up convincing themselves that their continued presence is synonymous with stability. Eventually they stop asking whether they are still helping the institution and start asking what might happen to the institution without them.

That is how stewardship becomes dependency, and how dependency becomes stagnation.

Celtic does not need Dermot Desmond forever. No institution should need one man forever, and if it does, then the institution has been badly designed. This is not a family shop. It is Celtic Football Club. It existed before Dermot Desmond and it will exist after Dermot Desmond. The question is what state he intends to leave it in.

That is where legacy really comes into this.

Legacy is not what you write about yourself, what your friends tell you at dinner or what people around the boardroom table say when you enter the room. It is what remains in people’s minds when you are no longer there to influence the conversation.

Right now, I think Desmond badly misunderstands what that verdict is becoming.

The supporters are not preparing to build a statue. They are preparing for the day the influence ends. That should tell him something, and if it doesn’t tell him anything, perhaps somebody around him should.

Again, I come back to our high wealth fans – and maybe even to Fergus himself. The people with access to him, the commercial partners, executive-box holders, influential shareholders and assorted Friends of the Man have a responsibility here too.

What are they telling him?

Are they telling him the truth about how deep the hostility has become? Are they explaining that his sons do not have some natural entitlement to inherit his influence? Are they warning him that the family name is no longer acquiring prestige through its association with Celtic but increasingly acquiring resentment?

Or are they doing what courtiers always do: smiling, nodding and telling the king that the kingdom loves him? Because that is how leaders lose touch with reality, and Celtic has already seen what happens when a boardroom dynasty becomes convinced that it alone represents continuity and stability.

The Kellys and Whites did not leave Celtic because they suddenly accepted every criticism made against them. They left because eventually the structure around them became unsustainable. The club had outgrown them, the support had turned against them and the modern game had passed their model by. Then somebody else took over.

That is the historical analogy Desmond should be thinking about, not because Celtic is financially where it was in 1994. It plainly isn’t. The comparison is not financial. It is institutional. The old board made the mistake of believing that because Celtic had survived under them for generations, Celtic should continue under them.

History showed otherwise.

Dermot Desmond should be very careful about making the same mistake. A dynasty which has lost the confidence of the people it expects to govern is already dying. It just hasn’t admitted it yet. That is why I keep returning to the same question: why stay?

Why fight to preserve a structure which increasingly damages your own reputation? Why hand your sons a poisoned inheritance? Why remain until supporters eventually celebrate the day you leave? Why not control the ending, choose the succession and hand the club over in a position of enormous financial strength while saying this is precisely the moment when Celtic should move into its next era?

That would be leadership. It would be stewardship. It might even be statesmanship. And perhaps, ironically, it would do more to preserve Dermot Desmond’s legacy than another ten years of trying to preserve Dermot Desmond’s power.

There is one final historical lesson here. Fergus McCann was booed by sections of the Celtic support when he was actually running the club. Years later, he returned to Celtic Park and was received like a hero. Time changed the judgement because supporters came to understand what he had built and, crucially, that when his work was complete he had walked away. Dermot Desmond still has the opportunity to shape how his own story ends, but that opportunity will not remain forever.

Right now, what supporters will remember is drift. Arrogance. Distance. Lack of planning. Incompetence. Increasingly bad judgement.

There comes a point when staying ceases to protect a legacy and starts consuming it. There comes a point when a dynasty stops looking like continuity and starts looking like entitlement. There also comes a point when the greatest service a powerful man can perform for an institution is recognising that it no longer needs him.

Dermot Desmond may once have imagined leaving Celtic to his sons as a crown. Unless something changes, he is far more likely to leave them a cinder block which will drown all goodwill and poison the family name forever.

There is a great moment at the end of The Insider which always makes me smile; Mike Wallace and the CBS executives are discussing the public attention span, and one suggests that all things have a half-life of 15 minutes.

Wallace corrects him;

“No that’s fame,” he says. “Fame has a fifteen-minute half-life, infamy lasts a little longer.”

And right now, that’s what Desmond and his family are staring at.

Infamy. That is not a legacy. That is damnation.

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