Is Celtic’s ‘Toxic Fans’ Narrative Preparing The Ground For Ross Desmond?

There are stories you read and immediately wonder where they are leading.

One appeared on Celtic Quick News this week, and I think it deserves far more attention than it has received.

Writing about the current crisis at Celtic, CQN stated that nine months after Peter Lawwell departed, Celtic still have no permanent chairman. Brian Wilson remains in the role on an interim basis, having taken over on January 1.

What followed was far more interesting.

CQN’s Paul Brennan wrote: “I have spoken to multiple people who have politely declined to be considered for board positions, all for the same reason, fans have made the role toxic.” He then described that as a “factual inhibitor on our club”.

Now, I need to be very careful here.

I cannot tell you Celtic instructed CQN to publish that. I have no evidence whatsoever that they did. CQN is not an official Celtic publication and the opinions expressed there belong to its writers.

But plenty of Celtic supporters have long viewed CQN as being sympathetic towards the board. And when something like this appears, I think we’re perfectly entitled to examine the argument being presented and ask where it ultimately leads.

Because apparently Celtic cannot find a permanent chairman because the environment created by supporters is too toxic.

Really?

Rather than asking why one of Scotland’s biggest institutions has gone nine months without appointing a permanent chairman, suddenly we’re discussing whether Celtic supporters have made the position impossible to fill.

And here’s where my suspicious mind starts working overtime.

What happens if Celtic eventually decide that, because attracting an external candidate proved so difficult, the safest solution was someone already familiar with the club?

Someone from within the Celtic “family”, perhaps?

Someone called Ross Desmond?

Before anybody starts running with that as news – I am not reporting that Ross Desmond is becoming Celtic chairman. I have found no evidence that Celtic are currently preparing to appoint him.

I am speculating, the same way I would around a potential signing for the first team. No laughing at the back.

I’m asking whether the narrative now being established would provide a very convenient explanation if something like that eventually happened.

And Ross Desmond is hardly an irrelevant name plucked from nowhere.

His appearance at the infamous 2025 AGM will still be fresh in supporters’ minds.

Ross Desmond didn’t host the AGM.

However, he became central to the event when he delivered a statement on behalf of himself and his father, Dermot Desmond. The meeting had already been adjourned amid “sack the board” chants before Ross’s intervention provoked another furious reaction and the AGM was eventually abandoned.

Outlets recorded him accusing a section of supporters of behaving like “bullies”.

So imagine the reception if, less than a year later, Celtic announced him as chairman.

It would be absolutely poisonous.

It would also make a mockery, in my opinion, of all this talk about board renewal and refreshment.

Celtic have just appointed Mark Keane and Raymond Buchanan as new non-executive directors following the departures of Lawwell and Tom Allison. Wilson himself described those appointments as filling the vacancies created by those retirements.

That is at least movement.

But appointing the son of the club’s most influential shareholder as chairman would immediately raise an obvious governance question: how much has actually changed?

And let’s get something else straight while we’re here.

He is Celtic’s largest individual shareholder, but he does not hold a majority of the ordinary shares. Current market data puts his holding at approximately *34.45%*, representing 32,772,073 shares.

I’ve heard Desmond called Celtic’s owner countless times. He isn’t. Celtic plc has multiple shareholders and Desmond is the largest individual shareholder among them.

Which makes the prospect of his son becoming chairman — again, purely hypothetically — even more worthy of scrutiny.

Would that represent the modernisation supporters have been demanding?

Is it possible for Celtic supporters to genuinely look at a board containing Dermot Desmond, with Ross Desmond sitting at the head of the table, and conclude Celtic had embraced meaningful change?

I certainly wouldn’t.

There is another reason the timing interests me.

CQN didn’t suddenly discover this argument this week. During the summer, the site was already discussing difficulties recruiting non-executive directors and wrote of “the toxicity of being a Celtic director in recent years”. ([Celtic Quick News][6])

So this is becoming a recurring narrative.

Meanwhile Celtic have demonstrated that they *can* recruit externally. Two new non-executives were announced only last week. ([Celtic FC][4])

That doesn’t prove finding a chairman is easy. Nor does it disprove Brennan’s claim that prospective candidates have declined approaches because of the atmosphere surrounding the club.

But supporters are perfectly entitled to challenge the leap from that claim to the suggestion that fans have made the role toxic.

Why is the relationship toxic in the first place though, guys?

That question cannot simply disappear because the people expressing their frustration are inconvenient.

And this year’s AGM is creeping closer…

Nine months with an interim chairman is already extraordinary enough.

If we arrive at the AGM with Brian Wilson still temporarily occupying the position, the obvious question becomes increasingly difficult to avoid:

Who exactly are Celtic waiting for?

Perhaps the answer will be a genuinely independent, impressive appointment who signals that the promised board refresh is real.

I hope so.

But if the eventual solution comes from the same small circle that has exercised enormous influence over Celtic for years, supporters will understandably wonder whether the destination was decided long before the journey was explained.

And if that person happened to be Ross Desmond?

Then don’t insult our intelligence by telling us Celtic were forced to look within because the supporters made every other option impossible.

That would not be boardroom renewal.

It would be keeping it in the family — and blaming the Celtic support for it.

Keep Your Eyes On The Board.