Business brains Jackson reports back to Daily Record readers on the Celtic AGM

Keith Jackson as shared his insight into the Celtic AGM with the Daily Record’s Army of Readers, in October the Record was still selling an incredible average of 55,833 copies per day although that is down 14% on last year’s number.

With an early reference to Sevcoholics the star man at the Record Sports Desk could have copied and pasted his report from one of his favourite message-boards as he sneered at the investors in front of him daring to grill his good buddy Peter Lawwell.

When the Celtic CEO wanted to tell supporters that there would be fans inside Celtic Park at test matches in July 2020 he turned to his mate at the Record rather than use the club website. Typical of Lawwell’s judgement it was more than a year before fans returned to the stadium.

That little mishap is nothing of course to some of the exclusives that Jackson has produced down the years, with the stand-out being the introduction of a little known billionaire from Motherwell late in 2010.

Mister Whyte had wealth off the radar according to Jackson, at least the businessman from Motherwell had been smart enough to cremate most of his Google history, today, 13 years on, Jackson’s profile of Whyte is still gathering clicks for the Daily Record.

CLICK HERE to read Keith’s iconic masterpiece in full.

Expressing his contempt for the shareholders, Jackson tells Record readers:

For more than a decade now the Parkhead hierarchy has been trotted out behind the top table to reflect on another 12 months where the cash has been flowing into the bank account as quickly as the silverware has been clogging up the trophy cabinet. And yet, still, despite this unparalleled success story, they spend the next hour or so having verbal custard pies thrown at them by the boo-hiss brigade.

For a long while they would queue up to ask about the financial affairs of their closest rivals, even if they could not quite bring themselves to mention them by name. And if it wasn’t for questions from the Sevcoholics, the board would have to answer for the state of the matchday pies. The topics may have changed over time. By recollection there was only one mention of the ‘tribute act from across the city’ yesterday and one reference to the ‘five way agreement’ which was made by a man so angry he has apparently lost the ability to blink.

Over that same decade Celtic have won once in the Champions League, with Lawwell’s micro-management evident in every corner the club has lost out to Malmo, Maribor, AEK Athens, Cluj and Ferencvaros in the race for a £20m plus Champions League boost.

Sitting at the back of the room yesterday it probably came as a surprise to Jackson that some shareholders don’t share his dewy eyed view of their club Chairman, some of them possibly don’t even buy the Daily Record, now priced at £1.10 on Monday’s to Friday’s. Back in 2011 you could buy a national institution for less.

CLICK HERE for October circulation figures for UK newspapers.