It goes without saying that Dermot Desmond won’t be attending the 2026 Celtic AGM.
The Irish businessman has his priorities, the only definite Scottish dates in his diary are at the Alfred Dunhill Cup at the start of August.
A big European match, a cup final or the first match of a new manager are the type of events that might interrupt his diary into an unscheduled visit to Glasgow.
Last December Desmond Senior attended the Europa League tie against Roma. After 72 minutes he left with Wilfried Nancy’s team getting the run-around from the Italian side.
In recent years Ross Desmond has been sent by Dad to the Celtic AGM. Rarely speaking, just filling a seat at the top table, faking interest and then back to his preferred circuit of rugby fixtures.
The Celtic AGM 2025 was very different in many ways.
Chairman Peter Lawwell lost the plot, failed to chair the meeting, failed to get the Resolutions read out, shouted behave and closed it without Michael Nicholson having to face a single question.
There was one significant event at the 2025 AGM.
THE INFAMOUS ROSS DESMOND STATEMENT- FOR DAD
Lawwell invited Ross to read out a lengthy statement on behalf of his Daddy.
Dermot was in a very angry mood when he dictated that statement, Ross was trebling at parts of it as he read it out to shareholders.
There was a fair bit of hostility in the room to the statement from Desmond. Ross isn’t used to hostility, Daddy usually steers him well clear of that sort of thing.
Lawwell ended the meeting before Ross could finish.
Fortunately a few videos were taken of the speech, Ross went viral, he was out of the family nest with a near universally hostile reaction to his speech.
Of course there was no accountability. Desmond Mini has attended one match at Celtic Park since.
For the 2026 AGM the Celtic Trust have got three Resolutions on the Agenda.
Of course they will all be voted down. By default the Board will always vote against any proposals from the Trust.
But the purpose of the Resolution is that someone from the Trust gets to propose their Resolution at the AGM.
Ross will have to sit in silence as he is called out and criticised.
Will Ross be strong enough to suffer through that ordeal. Or will be bottle it and find something else to do on December 1?
The Resolution from the Trust states:
This AGM instructs the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Celtic PLC to:
Issue a full and unreserved apology to the shareholders and supporters of Celtic FC for giving a platform at the 2025 AGM to an individual, who holds no role within the governance of Celtic PLC, which he then abused to insult and denigrate our shareholders and our supporters.
To publicly commit to ensure that such an abuse of the AGM is never allowed to happen again.
Supporting the Resolution the Trust states
At the 2025 Celtic PLC AGM, held at Celtic Park on 21 November 2025, the then Chairman, Peter Lawwell, invited Ross Desmond, a Dublin-based businessman, on to the platform to deliver a speech.
Mr Desmond has no role in the company of any kind and should not have been offered this facility.
As we understand it, he was attending the AGM as a proxy for a relative of his and was, as we all are, entitled to speak at the appropriate time and in the appropriate part of the hall. However, from his unwarranted and elevated position, Mr Desmond delivered a tirade against the support which was so egregiously insulting and offensive that the response of shareholders was clearly audible in the hall.
During this assault, Mr Desmond, in what appeared to be a pre-planned manoeuvre, continually looked towards the Chairman, who duly obliged him by closing the AGM at which point the entire Board of Directors left the platform.
Thereafter, Celtic PLC briefed the press, adding insult to injury by laying the blame for the interrupted AGM on those present who rightly and vocally objected to Mr Desmond’s insults.
This was a complete abuse of the AGM process, should never have been allowed to happen, and should never be allowed to happen again.
In a period of lows, this was amongst the lowest the Celtic PLC Board have ever stooped and each and every one of them should be ashamed of themselves. We call on them to apologise so that we can put this shameful event behind us and move on.
Attendance at the AGM for this moment will be golden.
The Chair can manipulate questions, plants can come forward with the most trivial questions during the Q and A.
But backed by over 100 shareholders the Resolution from the Trust will be explained.
The big question now is whether Ross can take his medicine or whether he will opt to join his Dad doing something more important than the Celtic AGM.
There’s not a fu**in snowballs chance in hell of getting an apology from that mob…
But it’s a bloody good resolution statement from the trust for sure !