Celtic’s AGM was quite something.
What is usually a procedural meeting which generates a few headlines ended up being abandoned by Peter Lawwell, after an extraordinary statement by Ross Desmond, son of Dermot.
Shareholders in attendance heckled Desmond as he defended the club’s European record and labelled some fans as ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘bullies’.
The abandoned meeting took an already-broken relationship between the board and the support and somehow made it worse. The Celtic Fans Collective and Celtic Trust have unequivocally condemned how the day was handled by the club.
With opinions flying around over who was to blame and what should’ve been done differently, Hoops hero Frank McAvennie has made his stance clear to the board.
Frank McAvennie hammers Dermot Desmond after Celtic AGM
Desmond very rarely speaks in public, and his decision to not attend the yearly meetings is an irritation of many fans.
But to get his son to stand up and have a go at fans was not something that most saw coming.
READ MORE: Peter Grant urges Celtic to change Wilfried Nancy’s start date in backroom staff warning
McAvennie thinks that this, as well as his explosive statement about Brendan Rodgers, was ill-advised.
He said, on Let Me Be Frank podcast: “One of the questions that I would’ve asked is: when Dermot put that statement out about Brendan, did he show the board before he put it out?
“If I was on the board, I would’ve said: ‘You can’t put this out. This is not coming from Celtic, this is coming from you.’
“I don’t know Dermot, I’ve not met him. But I can imagine that he wouldn’t ask anyone’s approval. To put his boy there, who’s not even on the board… he shouldn’t be there!
“I just hope somebody’s got sense. Get a bit of common sense – Peter, or Michael – speak to Dermot, and say: ‘We’ll take the brunt of it, if Dermot doesn’t want to do it.’
“I think Michael or Peter might do it. They’ll have known that – that was wrong. And I’m hoping that they see a wee bit of sense, and say to Dermot: ‘Look, we’ll put the olive branch out. You just back off.’
“Listen, what happened with the Green Brigade, with the ban and all that, that doesn’t matter. You get that in every club.
“There’s always somebody that does something wrong, and that was wrong, but you can’t tar everybody with the same brush.”
What happened at Celtic’s AGM?
Anti-board banners were seen outside Celtic Park on the morning of the meeting, and that set the tone for a day with plenty of tension.
Lawwell and Michael Nicholson were booed onto the stage, with attendees waving giant red cards in protest against them.
When chants of ‘sack the board’ started ringing out, Lawwell adjourned the meeting for 30 minutes.
They briefly returned to the stage, but Desmond junior’s statement was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and it was abandoned before the planned Q&A
Celtic statement on AGM postponement
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
