Peter Lawwell met with Celtic supporter group this week; what was said and what was avoided

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Representatives from The Celtic Trust met with officials from the club on Wednesday to discuss a variety of issues.

Trust chair David Low and acting secretary Jeanette Findlay raised a number of topics with senior figures at Celtic, including current Chief Executive Peter Lawwell.

The meeting followed on from a Trust members video call at the end of January, during which a number of resolutions were passed.

A post-Peter Lawwell Celtic

One such resolution called for a root and branch review of football operations at the club.

The Trust, in an e-mail to members this week, relayed that Celtic said the following on that situation: “There are opportunities for the club to have a look at how we operate post-Peter Lawwell; consideration has been given to this for the last few years; they have taken into account what has happened over the last few months and noted, in particular, that when things are not going well there is heightened scrutiny in terms of recruitment.

“They indicated that they have some ideas and recommendations on how the club goes forward but as a club they are optimistic about the fundamentals of our club and, in their view, Celtic are a modern, progressive football club regarded as such by football in Scotland and Europe.”

Celtic are also looking ahead to the major changes to UEFA competitions planned from 2024 – which we’ve discussed before on 67 Hail Hail.

The club are expecting more information on this to be made public in the next couple of weeks, and insisted that there’s a focus on ensuring Celtic are involved as much as possible.

Celtic avoid Neil Lennon question

The club group were less forthcoming on the internal review of the footballing operations at the club. For starters, per the Trust e-mail, they completely avoided the Neil Lennon question.

In the meeting, Celtic were pressed on whether Lennon will be in place as manager next season, which the club refused to answer. Any decision on personnel such as that will be made by the board, the club said.

We are no further forward to knowing what the future holds in the Celtic dugout. Why the secrecy? My best guess is that the club are waiting until the league is mathematically impossible to win.

Peter Lawwell will retain Celtic shares, Trust reveal

Another resolution discussed by The Celtic Trust in January related to the shares held by Peter Lawwell.

His retirement raised the question of whether he should gift his holding back to Celtic supporters.

However, the club stated that none of Lawwell’s shares were given to him as part of his salary package. All of them were bought by him personally and he intends to keep that shareholding within his family.

That is his right of course, though personally, I am in favour of as many shares being held by supporters groups as possible.

Additional value for Celtic season ticket holders

The issue of season ticket investment also came up.

Per the Trust e-mail to members, this is what was relayed by the club with regards to season tickets, the concept of refunds and ‘added value’:

• Last year is clear – people can still get their refunds on 2019/20 season tickets.
• This year it is not clear and that Celtic are currently working out how to approach this.
• Celtic said that, in their view, there is no right to refunds for this year.
• Celtic said that they could not give any clarity on what added value will look like because, at this point, they just don’t know.

Make of that what you will. Clearly the club haven’t yet come up with fully realised solutions to the season ticket issue, despite having the best part of a year to do so.

Time is running out on effectively communicating on almost all of the issues above, from Lennon’s future to season tickets.

Credit to The Celtic Trust, they adequately put forward the issues, but the club are yet to fully embrace a progressive relationship with supporters.

Sooner or later these conversations must take place in public.

In other news, Neil Lennon has expanded on Christopher Jullien’s knee injury.