2025 Celtic PLC Accounts – is this what gaslighting means?
The Chairerson’s (Peter Lawwell’s ) gaslighting of fans in relation to Celtic’s 24/25 financial accounts indicates the level of contempt for fans and how out of touch the board and current custodians are with the source of their revenues.
It is important that the custodians of Celtic Football Club (including Desmond, the executives and the non-Executives on the Board of Directors) understand that Celtic fans have more than the single objective of maximising short-term profits.
The chairperson’s statement provides a very narrow perspective on the justification for hoarding cash given that the first team ‘fire power’ up front has been severely diminished over the past year or so. The selling of O’Reilly, Kyogo, Kuhn and Idah without timely ‘quality’ replacement saw Celtic fail to qualify for UCL with a loss of £30m to £40m in revenue for this coming year. This impacts on the European football coefficient and that makes it much more difficult for Celtic (assuming we win the domestic league) to qualify for UCL this season due to the increased number of qualification games; hence, will reduce our revenues in future years.
The fans want to maximize several objectives including the quality of the football team, fan engagement and long-term financial stability. All the above need well thought out short, medium, long term commercial and football strategies supported by up-to-date structures and process, e.g. a Director of Football and a football committee that feeds back to the Board. The Celtic fans objectives include Celtic having the highest possible quality football team not just for domestic dominance but also for progression within European football competitions, an independent fan advisory board that provides effective stakeholder formal feedback and stadium redevelopment with increased capacity that will enhance both fan experience and revenues.
The Chairman’s statement does nothing to address these sensible and reasonable objectives or any information on how they plan to achieve them.
Meanwhile, we appear to be employing, at great cost, a lawyer who cannot negotiate deals and an accountant who cannot save us tax. What do we pay them a bonus for?