Keith Jackson publishes paranoid claims about Peter Lawwell and Neil Doncaster
Soccer Football - Scottish Cup Final - Celtic vs Motherwell - Hampden Park, Glasgow, Britain - May 19, 2018 Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell (2nd L) and Independent non-executive director Dermot Desmond (C) in the stand Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff
Keith Jackson has put the paranoid thoughts inside Ibrox about the SPFL into print.
According to the award-winning Daily Record reporter there are some inside the 11-year-old club that believe that Neil Doncaster and Murdoch McLennan are in place to carry out the orders of Celtic’s Peter Lawwell.
There is plenty of murky water around since the summer of 2012 when Doncaster drove through the Five Way Agreement with Lawwell later laughing as he told shareholders at the 2019 Celtic AGM that he hadn’t even seen the document.
Using Doncaster and McLennan as the bogey men of Scottish football has served the Ibrox club well down the years, covering up the failings of their own club at various levels.
In tandem with their fan-media partners the notion has been pushed that the SPFL are to blame for the lack of trophies at Ibrox rather than the disastrous decisions to appoint and invest in various management teams.
Since the Easdale regime was ousted at Ibrox in March 2015 Celtic have won five trebles with St Johnstone taking as many trophies to Perth as the True Blues in the Ibrox boardroom have delivered.
Discussing the breakthrough in relations between ‘dynamic and progressive’ Ibrox chairman John Bennett and the SPFL, Jackson tells Daily Record readers:
Let’s be absolutely blunt. For some years now there has been a strongly held belief inside the command centre at Ibrox that Doncaster and McLennan have been cleverly and deliberately placed in positions of power in order to facilitate the orders of Celtic’s Peter Lawwell.
Paranoia has a long history of running rampant in this particular city whenever one of these two sides is dominating the other on the pitch. But Bennett seems determined not only to free his club from the shackles of suspicion but also to bring an end to an era of finger jabbing and constantly seeking to blame others for what, in the main part, has been the club’s own mistakes and failings.
The SPFL hold their AGM today with Michael Nicholson standing down from the Board, incoming Ibrox chief James Bisgrove is one of five candidates for the three Premiership places on the board.