Only one form of takeover will protect Celtic for the next generation.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to talk about a lot of different things happening at Celtic. But when we talk about the future of this club, one of the most important subjects has to be its shareholding.

There are reports and rumours coming from all over the place suggesting that various individuals have spoken to various other individuals and are considering some kind of rescue operation. It all sounds beautiful.

It sounds like exactly what we need if you look at it purely from the perspective of ending the present crisis. Get Dermot Desmond out, get some new people in, change the board and start again.

But let me tell you why I don’t think that is enough, and why I believe there is a much better course available to us.

One of my favourite sections of The Lord of the Rings is also one of the parts which translates least easily to the screen: the Council of Elrond.

All the different peoples of Middle-earth come together to decide what should be done with the One Ring. At one point, someone suggests taking it out to sea and throwing it into the depths, because the Ring had already been lost in the Anduin River for centuries and many had presumed it had been washed down to sea already.

Gandalf rejects the idea. His reasoning is simple.

They would not be solving the problem. They would merely be passing it on to another generation. The sea itself cannot be guaranteed to hold the Ring forever, because things live there, currents change and the world moves.

The problem belongs to them. They should seek an end to it, even if they cannot yet see exactly how that end can be achieved.

After a lot of thought, that is where I have landed on Celtic ownership.

Our responsibility in the here and now is not merely to get rid of Dermot Desmond. Our responsibility is to Celtic’s future beyond the here and now.

As long as this club remains under the effective control of one individual or a small group of individuals, there will always be a risk attached to that structure. Potentially even an existential one.

It does not matter if the next owners are good people. It does not matter if they are progressive. It does not matter if they are competent, ambitious and arrive with a business plan every supporter can get behind.

Because we have now seen what happens when Celtic becomes the plaything of a small group of people, and if the opportunity eventually arrives to change that, we should not simply pass the club from one small group to another.

The next version of Celtic should end that model altogether. That should be one of the great ambitions of our generation of supporters: not merely to pass fandom to those who come after us, but responsibility.

To pass Celtic itself into their hands. To trust them not to break it.

That does not mean supporters sitting around voting on who plays at left-back. Celtic would still be run by professional people.

A supporter-owned club could appoint an outstanding board. That board could employ a world-class chief executive and surround that person with a world-class executive team. It could build the foundations of a genuinely elite football operation.

We are a business turning over well in excess of £100 million.

This is a gigantic organisation. It is simply one which too often behaves as though it has to be run by whoever happens to know somebody already inside the building.

It doesn’t. Top people would come here. Smart, ambitious people would come to Celtic to grow the business, expand its footprint and rebuild the football department properly. They could be given the authority to restructure every level of the club and turn it into a genuine meritocracy from the top of the house all the way down.

Demand the highest standards everywhere.

There is absolutely no reason that cannot work. Celtic already has one enormous advantage over every other club in Scotland and most clubs on these islands: we already know that the club can sustain itself.

We are accustomed to Celtic being run on a profitable basis, and that does not need to change. There is value in buying players intelligently, developing them and selling them for significantly more. That model works.

But with a properly functioning football department and a genuine football strategy, you could marry that approach to serious Champions League ambition. You could combine excellent coaching, excellent recruitment and cutting-edge sports science without remotely threatening the financial health of the club.

It does not have to break the bank. We have already proved that.

We are in this position by choice, not necessity. Celtic is not some impoverished football club scraping coins together to carry out the most basic functions.

We choose to behave that way.

We choose to fill positions with people whose principal qualification sometimes appears to be that they know somebody already inside the walls.

Those are choices. Different choices can be made. And this is the critical point: Celtic is not dependent on a sugar daddy.

We have never depended on Dermot Desmond regularly shovelling his personal fortune into the club to keep it alive. So, we do not need another sugar daddy after him.

We would not miss that wealth because Celtic already operates primarily on the money Celtic generates. That changes the entire ownership argument.

When people ask, “If Desmond goes, then who?” My answer is increasingly simple. Nobody. Nobody but us. The supporters.

Because replacing Dermot Desmond with another wealthy individual does not solve the structural problem. It merely resets the clock. Perhaps the first buyer would be excellent. Perhaps the next group would run Celtic brilliantly.

But eventually they sell too. Or their children inherit it. Or circumstances change. Or somebody gets bored. Suddenly the future of an institution which has existed for generations is being determined by whoever can write the biggest cheque.

That is inherently dangerous.

For all my feelings about Desmond — and I have reached the point where I can honestly say that I hate what his influence has done to this club — I also know intellectually that Celtic could end up with someone much worse.

Look south of the border and you can see ownership situations which should make every football supporter think very carefully about what they wish for.

The Jim Ratcliffe’s of this world will always exist. So will oligarchs. So will hedge funds. So will private equity. So will people who regard football clubs as toys, investments, political instruments or prestige assets.

As long as Celtic remains available to concentrated private control, the possibility will always exist that one day it falls into hands which supporters would regard as completely incompatible with what this institution is supposed to represent.

And that cannot be allowed to happen.

Even if the first people who replace Desmond are benign, even if they are brilliant, even if I personally like every single thing they propose, the structure itself remains dangerous. I increasingly think it falls to us to deal with that danger rather than passing it on.

This should not become the next generation’s problem.

We should seek an end to it. Even if, right now, we cannot yet clearly see exactly how we are going to achieve it.

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