The Celtic Trust has provided an update as to what was discussed at the latest meeting between themselves and the club.
Two resolutions, which had been passed by Celtic Trust members on the 26th of January 2021 were presented to the club. The first regarding the supposed January Review of the club and the second being related to the shares held by Peter Lawwell.
The update read as follows:
In response to the first resolution which called for a root & branch review the Club said the following:
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.
When asked for a timeline for the outcome of these deliberations they indicated that they were working towards expected changes to European competition focussing on making sure Celtic is relevant and has access and participates in whatever comes along. These changes are expected to happen in 2024 – they said they are limited in the information they can share but it does involve radical change and that this will become obvious in the next week or two – UEFA will be doing presentations around Europe.
They said that they cannot give us a timeline in relation to the internal review of operations which is currently being carried out but when asked about the scope of the matters under consideration they indicated that it was football operations and how the club operates in terms of the executives. Trust reps pressed the Celtic reps on the question of whether the manager was likely to be in place next season. We were told that they would not answer that. We were told it will be a Board decision regarding any changes in personnel
They are not currently looking at the role of the NEDS (as requested by our members) but they agreed to take our serious concerns on board re the NEDs back to the Board and respond to us at our next meeting.
The Trust reps then raised the content of the second resolution which related to the shares held personally by Peter Lawwell. The reps indicated that we believe that executive salaries at Celtic PLC are excessive for the business they are in and that this call was for Peter Lawwell to give some of that back to the fans in the form of his shares which were part of his remuneration package. We were informed that there have been no shares allocated to PL as part of his salary package and that the only shares he owns are ones that he purchased personally and that he intends to retain them within his family.
The issue of season tickets for both this year and next was a discussion point in the meeting as the trust looked to the club to provide some more clarity to supporters. In regards to this, it doesn’t look as though there will be any sort of full clarification until later down the line.
- Last year is clear – people can still get their refunds.
- This year it is not clear and that they are currently working out how to approach this.
- They said that, in their view, there is no right for refunds for this year.
- They said that they could not give any clarity on what added value will look like because, at this point, they just don’t know.
Other major discussion points included apparent differential treatment of Celtic and other clubs in relation to broken Covid protocols and the view on various controversial refereeing decision. Both were discussed but to no conclusion or action point agreed.
We will continue to provide supporters with updates from the Celtic Trust going forward.
If you would like to get involved with the Celtic Trust, as we have. You can register with the group here.
In terms of subscription levels The Trust set the minimum at £5 per month so as not to exclude anyone on grounds of affordability, but those who want to, and are able, are invited to subscribe at a higher level in order to buy more shares more quickly.
