Celtic’s 2022 AGM took place this afternoon and was a much less combustible affair than last season which saw supporters voice their concerns in person after a disastrous 2020-21 season both on and off the pitch.
After a year of stability and success under Ange Postecoglou, today’s AGM went by with little incident, but there were still some burning questions to be answered and issues to be addressed.
Here’s three things we learned from this year’s Celtic AGM:
Stadium expansion not looking likely any time soon
The notion of a capacity expansion to Celtic Park has been floated around the last couple of AGMs, and Chief Financial Officer Chris McKay noted that a significant extension would cost the club circa-£100million.
With that in mind, it’s certainly not something we’ll be seeing anytime soon, and only with sustained, consistent involvement in the Champions League and properly investing the associated revenues will it become something that the club will seriously consider.
Whether such an expansion is even necessary will no doubt divide opinion, but many will point to the likes of Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium which regularly hosts many non-football events as a source of additional revenue.
Ticket exchange system looks to be in the pipeline
Another much-requested topic has been a ticket-swap system that would allow season ticket holders to offer their seat on a one-off basis to other supporters without having to physically exchange their ticket, or simply offer QR codes as tickets as has been the case at Hampden Park for Scotland games for some time now.
As reported by Celtic Underground, this was addressed at the AGM, and the club have been in discussions with concert platform Ticketmaster over a potential deal.
Whilst the potential for a digital ticket exchange is certainly a positive move, Ticketmaster’s involvement would raise some eyebrows given platform’s move towards demand-based surcharges on popular tickets, with some going for several times face value on the platform.
As was stated at the AGM, however, this looks to be something that we’ll get more detail on in the coming weeks.
No Peter Lawwell, but no new chairman either
As Ian Bankier is due to step down at the start of next year, this was the chairman’s final AGM, and with rumours circling in the summer that Peter Lawwell would be returning to the club a year after stepping down as CEO, many wondered if he might be present at today’s AGM.
This was not the case, but Bankier offered no insight into who will be replacing him at the helm of the club, as Football Scotland reported on their liveblog (13:02), stating: “The decision to step down was my decision. It wasn’t something that was on the agenda. As soon as the board has made a decision, it will announce to the stock exchange and markets.”
Bankier announced his intention at the end of July, and with less than two months until he does indeed step down, it seems odd that the club don’t yet have a replacement in the pipeline, but no doubt this is another issue that we’ll receive further clarification on soon enough.
In other news: Celtic star Kyogo speaks after astonishing Japan World Cup snub
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