As I’ve just returned from holiday, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to celebrate our cup win with you. Before we return to the failings of this board in what was a chaotic season, and the self inflicted nature of the entire scenario, I would just like to bask a moment longer in the glow of an utterly remarkable achievement from the management team and players.

It cannot be understated, and I don’t think it ever will be, just how astonishing it was to witness a double that at one point seemed likely only if you believed in Santa or genies. As I said when we moved into the post split fixtures, if you have a surplus barrel of faith for keeping, now is the time to roll it out!

I was fortunate to be at The Rangers game, but that only set up the anxiety and excitement for the next two. The celebrations after the Motherwell and Hearts games were pure delirium, relief and overflowing endorphins, overloading a system weakened by many weeks of stress. Despite the importance of the cup final and another historic double, it was a positively serene experience compared to the previous weeks. With the title in the bag, it felt like the good old days when there was trepidation but underlying confidence and the expectation of victory.

And what a double it was. We always say it doesn’t matter how you win these things, just that you do. The history books don’t lie is the refrain. Very true, but on this occasion it’s surely reasonable to wish they better narrated the story of the season. I suppose that’s where us humble fans step in. To ensure the story of Celtic is about more than trophy counts and stats. It’s up to us to bring the fairytale to life. To give substance to the romance and glory to the games. It’s a privilege every day to be fortunate enough to be born a Celtic fan.

Back to Business

Celtic Supporters Limited will be familiar to most of you. This is the group whose most notable director is David Low, former financial adviser to Fergus McCann. Their purpose is to gather shares by purchase and locate shares whose owners have not been identified to this point. Effectively it’s the same basic premise as the Celtic Trust, but with bigger hitters on board who have access to people with serious capital available should they wish to spend it on Celtic shares if, or when, they become available.

They have produced and published a number of documents today that confirm many of the criticisms of this board have been justified. They do an excellent job of putting to bed the oft repeated notion that Celtic are a well-run club. They are a profitable club. There’s a very significant difference.

To quote from the introduction to the strategic review.

The main findings are that Celtic PLC’s financial record over the observation window is strong on absolute terms (revenue growth of 136% over five years, four consecutive profitable years from FY2022 to FY2025, an improved wage-to-revenue ratio), that on relative terms a revenue-per-seat gap of approximately six times persists against directly comparable Premier League clubs, and that the governance structure has characteristics (concentrated voting control through nominee vehicles, long non-executive tenures, a 2005 Rule 9 whitewash, a 0-of-6 board meetings attendance record by the largest economic owner in the most recent reporting year, an undeclared alternate-director arrangement) that raise falsifiable governance questions properly put to the board under Companies Act 2006 sections 314 to 317.

Speaking In Code

We already knew that corporate governance receives mere lip service at Celtic. They get round most of what is expected of any well governed company by applying the lighter QCA code, rather than the more rigorous UK Corporate Governance Code, which is what would overwhelmingly be expected of a club the size of Celtic. The QCA code is generally for small to medium sized companies that need to be more agile with ownership and appointments etc.

For instance, the QCA code doesn’t have a hard and fast 9-year rule in respect of the threshold where non-executive directors, who are supposed to bring an independent and objective voice to the boardroom, can no longer be considered independent. However, beyond that point the board is required to formally and transparently evaluate their independence on an annual basis. Given that the average tenure of the non-execs is 22.5years (not including the most recent appointment) then it’s entirely beyond farcical that they are still being assessed as independent.

One matter that hasn’t received much prior consideration is the exact position of Ross Desmond as an alternate director, standing in for his father. It was unprecedented that someone in such a position should be given prominence at an AGM and allowed to address, not to mention insult, the entire support. What exactly is this undeclared arrangement that allows the principal shareholder not to turn up the last 6 times he would have reasonably been expected, to have his son represent him?

The Cost of Inaction & Incompetence

However, outside of the rather dry ongoing discussion of governance failures, what the CSL have done well here in my opinion, is highlight the opportunity cost of the board’s failures by producing s defensible financial model.

To quote again –

Each year a club leaves addressable revenue on the table, the gap compounds, and the foregone cash cannot be recovered later. The model puts that cost at approximately £78m on a net-present-value basis over five years, in a defensible range of about £55m to £107m depending on how hard the stadium and commercial levers are driven. It is the net present value of incremental revenue foregone, not a cash-flow or equity figure, and the enabling investment of about £50m is funded from the £77.3m cash balance and operating cash flow. The structural point stands behind the number: a board with idle cash, no published strategic plan and no stated capital-allocation policy is, by inaction, the most expensive decision-maker in the company.

Although, in line with their approach, this is a statement in the most bland corporate terms, it is however an excoriating condemnation of the way the club is being run by the current board and illustrates the bleak failure to maximise the profitability and success of the club, especially in comparison to its European peers.

It is more work like this that will cut through the bluster and gaslighting of the Desmond ‘count the trophies’ condescending dismissal of critical questioning.

I would strongly recommend you take some time to peruse the documents they have published, which also include a head-to-head comparison with The Rangers, which demonstrates the level of the board’s failures again. That they would allow this season to be so close via our managed decline on the pitch. The absence of any such comparison with the relative financial minnows of Hearts, perfectly illustrates that this board is out of date, out of touch and out of time.

You will find all their documents on this page https://celticsupporters.net/the-celtic-paradox/