Without doubt the dogged determination of a certain group of Celtic shareholders played a huge role in Peter Lawwell’s decision to step down as Celtic’s CEO.
When you can pick up £3.5m from a company turnover of £84m, knowing Lawwell’s motives, it is a huge decision to step away from 17 years on the gravy train.
Since the issue of the 2011 UEFA licence issued to the old Rangers club was first raised at the 2013 Celtic AGM the matter has refused to go away despite lukewarm interest from the club most affected
The requistioners, including Auldheid, had put together a fairly straightforward case that a licence had been given against UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules due to an overdue payable (£2.8m owed to HMRC for the scams used to pay Ronald de Boer and Tore Andre Flo).
It seemed a straightforward case, the SFA appears to have acted to assist the Ibrox club and deny Celtic the chance of a possible £20m Champions League boost.
Strangely Celtic seemed reluctant to challenge the SFA, even when Lawwell’s good friend Stewart Regan was removed as CEO at Hampden the club was reluctant to push the issue, demand answers, get justice and reform.
Rod Petrie and Andrew Dickson were involved in the 2011 UEFA decision and are still inside the SFA along with others in a basically unregulated members association.
Lawwell did his best to kick the can on the issue, now that he has gone Celtic have the opportunity to take the SFA to task and get the answers they’ve held back for a decade on.
On the Sentinel Celts Forum Auldheid explains:
I’m happy to see Peter Lawwell go for two reasons.
- The pressure of living the lie will be taken off him. It has visibly taken its toll.
- Whilst one of his mistakes was accepting the 5WA the big one was not explaining why it was necessary to do so.
Make no mistake about it, Rangers foolish financial policy put Celtic in particular but every other club in SPL at the end of a gun. Conditions should have been set like domestic FFP before Sevco were given a foothold in our game.
That failure and others to address other governance issues has hamstrung Celtic. When Bankier said at AGM that Lawwell had acted in the Company’s interest that no longer stands the test of time. As long as what was in the Company’s interest was inseparable from Lawwell’s interest Res12 was always up against a barrier.
That will have gone and perhaps, fingers crossed, Celtic will engage with the SFA on non application of rules and campaign for domestic FFP and a change to the way referees are managed. If the new guy embarks on some review of operations I hope one lesson to be learned is dont mess with the support in a much more transparent world.
Involve them, they are as smart as The Board are and CST are the right show in town to start the process.
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