Most Celtic supporters are aware that there is an organised movement of opposition to the way that the current custodians of the club (the PLC Board) are conducting themselves in relation to transfers, transparency and fan engagement.
What has become apparent over the last week is the extent to which the movement, led by the Celtic Fans Collective, appears to have gotten under the skin of the Board and possibly even the seemingly very thin skin of the principal shareholder, Dermot Desmond.
A number of possibly unconnected things happened over the past week or so which look suspiciously like a deliberate attack on those organisations which are part of the Celtic Fans Collective.
This began probably the week before last with the hounding of the fan media by Celtic apparatchiks over copyright issues – interestingly this was a part of the company previously led by the current incumbent of the Company Secretary role.
Next up, was the admission by Computershare UK, the Registrars of the PLC, that a change in their voting system had resulted in all of the proxies that were intended for the Trust being rejected.
Unintended consequences of software changes can happen, but in the case of an AGM in which fewer than 1200 voters ever take part and for which the name Celtic Trust is well known, this should have been picked up far earlier than it was.
There had been complaints on social media about people being unable to vote or proxy since the system opened on 29 October and neither the Registrar not the Company did anything about it until the Celtic Trust raised it with them directly.
The seriousness of a shareholder organisation being impacted in this way is hard to overstate, and yet the current Company Secretary, unlike all of her predecessors, sat on her hands the whole time and was initially unreceptive to our request for an in-person meeting to discuss what they are going to do about it. A meeting will now take place this week face to face.
Normally (and I mean over the past 25 years) the Company Secretary and the Trust would have a meeting prior to the AGM to discuss all the arrangements – managing our proxies, talking about our resolutions, etc. Joanne McNairn has had no communications with us except to respond to our submission of the resolution requisition forms. It may be that she expected us to request a pre-AGM meeting but it is part of her job to ensure the AGM is run properly and speaking to a shareholder group which regularly requisitions resolutions should be part of that.
Finally, and most publicly, we have the all-out assault on the easy targets that are the Green Brigade. The Celtic Trust has responded over the weekend to this by way of a statement from the CFC of which we are a founding member and our own statement which can be found here.
By now all of you will know that a six-match ban (three away and three home games) has been imposed on all members of that group. I think someone may have forgotten to tell them though, given that they all pitched up on Sunday to the Kimarnock game…
All joking aside, this war between the current custodians and the supporters is as serious as I have known it to be in decades and something has to give. I am delighted to say that, at this point, I don’t think it will be the fans.
It is vitally important that supporters stand firm on this campaign if we don’t want to watch the long slow decline of our beloved club. The Not Another Penny campaign appears to be having an effect if the (lack of) queues at the Celtic shops and kiosks is anything to go by and hopefully that will start to make the Board take us more seriously.
The AGM, as tainted as it now is, should be the focus of us all for the next couple of weeks. The Board should not expect to get away lightly at their annual self-backslapping showpiece event. If you can make the AGM please do. Shareholders who are unable to attend can proxy their votes to others who can. Get in touch with the Trust if you need more information about this.
Jeanette Findlay
Vice Chair, The Celtic Trust
