Doubling Down- Lawwell digs in even further over Five Way denial

Peter Lawwell has gone even further with his denials over the Five Way Agreement put together by his close friend Neil Doncaster in the summer of 2012. Not only has he never read it but yesterday he added that he never will.

Lawwell and Doncaster were in daily contact as Rangers moved from administration to liquidation during the glorious summer of 2012. The SPL lost a major revenue driver and SFL clubs rejected a place in the Championship for Charles Green’s Tribute Act, instead they were propelled into Division 3 ahead of well run clubs like Edinburgh City, Spartans and Cove Rangers.

The death of Rangers resulted in an extra promotion place from every division with Dundee becoming Club 12 in the SPL, Green’s Tribute Act took Dundee’s place in the Challenge Cup, beating Brechin City after extra time before losing out to Queen of the South.

Without their O** F*** partners life became very different for Celtic, the club immediately began to downsize, culminating in the spring of 2016 with a half empty stadium watching a squad that saw Colin Kazim Richards edging out Carlton Cole and Nadir Ciftci for a place in the team.

That season Celtic lost semi-finals to Ross County and the Ibrox Tribute Act with turnover of £52m, down from the £67m recorded in 2004, the year Lawwell came in as CEO.

Life without Rangers and the O** F*** was a whole new ball game for Lawwell, despite effectively having a free run at the Champions League clubs like Malmo and Maribor left Celtic badly exposed with Molde winning home and away against the hoops in the Europa League.

Eleven years on the Five Way Agreement remains unpublished, it was brought up in one question to Lawwell at yesterday’s AGM with The Sun reporting:

PETER LAWWELL has addressed the topic of the infamous Rangers “five way agreement” with Celtic supporters at the club’s AGM.

The document was drafted back in 2012 and reportedly listed the terms and conditions for the Ibrox club regaining their SFA licence following liquidation.

Note: the SFA licence wasn’t regained, a new one was issued to Charles Green’s club.

The former Scottish Premier League, former Scottish Football League, the SFA, the old Rangers and the new Rangers were said to be the five parties who all had to agree to the stipulations.

But Lawwell, who was Celtic chief executive at that time, told shareholders that he’s NEVER read the agreement – and that he never will.

He is doubling down, not just a throwaway gag in 2019. Standing by his word. So if he isn’t telling lies he is just incredibly incompetent, Nicholson has read it.

Celtic chief Peter Lawwell says he’s never read 5-way agreement and ‘never will’ https://t.co/R6Ma5mzj3p?

— Celtic365 (@videocelts) November 22, 2023

At 13.05 in the Record‘s blog of the AGM Ben Banks noted:

Ah, Joe McHugh is up with a well-worn point.

The former journalist turned blogger asks if Lawwell was involved in the five-way agreement.

Lawwell replies with “never read it and never will” which prompts laughter from the crowd, especially the Rangers oldco and newco reference.

The former blogger didn’t ask that question but accuracy and the Daily Record are complete strangers.

At the 2019 AGM Lawwell was asked if anyone at Celtic was involved with the 2012 Five Way Agreement. In trademark style he laughed back at the question claiming that he had never even read the document.

Either he was telling a lie or is incredibly incompetent, picking up £3.5m in a good year he opted not to read a key document that gives Celtic’s only realistic domestic rival a separate set of rules from all other members of the SFA.

Yesterday’s question was a chance for Lawwell to correct the record, he doubled down even though at last year’s AGM Michael Nicholson admitted that he had read the Five Way Agreement.

At 12.59 on the Daily Record blog they reported:

The next question is for Mike Nicholson as one shareholder asks: “Your predecessor claimed he’d never seen a document commonly known as a the five-way agreement, which allows other clubs to be treated differently. Have you seen it?”

‘The five-way agreement is between 5 clubs not involving Celtic. I don’t see how it’s relevant in terms of the operation of our club’.

As Lawwell pointed out yesterday there are two clubs, not five involved in the Five Way Agreement, BDO as liquidators of Rangers and Charles Green with his tribute Act.

It is not going away you know #pantsonfire pic.twitter.com/kWQCj4SfL7

— Celtic365 (@videocelts) November 22, 2023

Ben dreams of becoming a blogger, free from that fast fading Glasgow publisher.

Oldco/newco time! https://t.co/XJOybFueW4

— Celtic365 (@videocelts) November 23, 2023