The Celtic Trust’s Jeanette Findlay shares Ross Demond’s mortifying AGM ‘plea for rescue’

The Celtic AGM had been overtaken by the conduct of Parkhead non-director of any sort, Ross Desmond.

The son of Dermot, Ross had no business addressing the Celtic supporters at all, never mind attacking them in such an aggressive and inflamatory manner.

The Celtic AGM took a dark turn at that moment as Peter Lawwell drew the proceedings to a close early as the Parhead executive lost all control of the meeting.

However, it was what happened after the closure of the meeting that will interest the Hoops support as The Celtic Trust’s Jeanette Findlay shares a blow by blow account of the most embarrassing episode of the Parkhead board’s tenure.

Ross Desmond’s embarrassing conduct at the Celtic AGM

Findlay has been front and centre of the movement against the Celtic board and at the AGM she bravely stood in front of them to demand a change to the proceedings so that Celtic fans had more time to question the executives in attendance.

And as Lawwell ended the meeting early, Jeanette shared an account of hpw matters came to a swift end and what happened immediately afterwards.

In a thread on X, Findlay said, “The initial adjournment was totally unwarranted and was based on the Chair refusing to rule properly on my procedural motion – not on any ‘disorder’. Once that was done the Q&A was gone given the Chair had declared that the meeting would end at 12:30 prompt.

“The Desmond diatribe was widely and publicly acknowledged as being provocative. The completely justifiable response to it was the pretext on which the Chair closed the meeting.

“In fact, it was a Board stooge swearing at the rest of us which immediately preceded the closing of the meeting. You might have also noticed some eye contact between Desmond and Lawwell at that point. It looked to me like a plea for rescue.”

The Celtic board ‘predetermined’ premature AGM end

And it also seems that the ending of the meeting was not as off-the-cuff as Lawwell tried to make out.

Jeanette continued, “So, it is clear to me that, under no circumstances was there ever going to be questions or challenge – appropriate or otherwise – at that AGM and to believe otherwise is I think understandable but naive.

“I am sure you have seen AGMs in top companies which were much more noisy than that which were properly chaired and concluded.

“The only reason this one wasn’t was because it was predetermined by the Board that this one wouldn’t be.

“The fact that we have a board that would do that to avoid scrutiny at all cost is the issue we agree on. Their removal is what we have to unite around,”

This whole sorry episode is a stain on the Celtic board and it will forever be remembered for their lack of class, backbone and accountabilty as they shamed the club with their conduct.