Dermot Desmond has never bought Celtic a player in his life – he signs the permission slip and the Record calls it a storm
This notion that Desmond puts his own money into Celtic needs to be debunked, he only takes from Celtic.
Eric Knott 
Dublin , Ireland - 7 June 2026; Celtic majority shareholder Dermot Desmond, left, during the friendly match between Shelbourne and Glasgow Celtic at Tolka Park in Dublin. (Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
This morning, Michael Gannon of the Daily Record reckons Scottish football needs to dig the waders out.
Storm Desmond is coming, apparently.
The rest of the league is about to be soaked, with Ally McCoist wheeled out to look worried about it, and the Hoops will be left high and dry while everybody else drowns in our wake.
It’s a nice bit of writing, I’ll give him that.
It’s also complete nonsense, and not for the reason you think.
Because there is no Storm Desmond.
There never has been.
The man has been at Celtic for thirty years and he has never once spent a penny of his own fortune on a footballer for us
16/05/2026
Let me say that again, because the papers never will.
Not one penny.
Not on Kasper Hogh, not on Camilo Duran, not on Mika Baur, not on Haissem Hassan.
Desmond didn’t spend a penny of his billions on any of them.
Every last pound of that “up to £30m” Gannon is talking about came out of Celtic Football Club.
The money came from season tickets bought by people who are counting the pennies to afford them.
It came from the Champions League money we scrapped for at Parkhead last Wednesday.
It came from selling Arne Engels and Daizen Maeda, players we developed, players the support paid to watch.
The £70m plus sitting in the bank is not his money either.
It’s ours.
He’s the custodian of a bank account he didn’t fill.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking.
Didn’t he put money in back in the Fergus days?
He bought shares, aye, the way a man buys a house he then charges other people rent to live in.
That was an investment in himself, not a gift to us.
Thirty years on, has he ever written a cheque to bring a centre forward to Celtic Park?
Not once.
What Desmond actually does is give the board permission to spend the money the support has already handed over.
That’s it.
That’s the whole job.
He nods, and Silent Mike is allowed to go and do the thing he should have been doing all along.
He shakes his head, and we get a January window where the sum total of the investment is Joel Mvuka and Junior Adamu.
Same man, same money in the bank, different answer.
Which tells you everything about where the power lies, and nothing at all about where the cash comes from.
And yet, year after year, the SMSM writes it up as though the man is dipping into his own back pocket for us.
“Desmond loosens the purse strings and Desmond sanctions a war chest.”
“Desmond opens the floodgates.”
The floodgates are ours, Michael.
He just stands next to them with the key.
So why are the players actually arriving this summer, if it isn’t a sudden attack of generosity from a double billionaire?
Here’s where I’ll be fair to him, because I don’t think it’s fair to be one-eyed about it.
Something has changed at Celtic this summer, and only a liar would pretend otherwise.
Hogh, Duran, Baur and Hassan are proper additions, and there’s more in the pipeline with pedigree.
The scattergun really has been put down.
But the reason for that isn’t the absent meddling golfer having a road to Damascus moment about the football club.
The reason is Martin O’Neill.
Desmond has respected the wishes of his manager, and that is a genuinely new development at Celtic Park.
Ask Brendan Rodgers what happened when he made his wishes known.
He asked for backing in a Champions League summer and got Almaty instead.
Martin didn’t get that respect handed to him – he went out and earned it in the worst season this club has had in thirty years
Because we all know what he walked into.
He came back to a club that had been set on fire by the football doctor and the men who hired him.
Desmond gave him ten minutes to make his mind up.
He steadied a ship that was going down, and then he won a league and a cup with a squad that had been gutted in front of him.
Nobody else could have done that.
Certainly nobody in a suit at Celtic Park could have done it.
So when Desmond says yes this summer, he isn’t being a benefactor.
He’s paying a debt.
He is doing the only thing the absent meddling golfer could reasonably do after a 74-year-old man dragged his club out of a hole that he himself dug.
And even that only extends as far as the CFO’s spreadsheet allows, because we’re still around £8m up on the summer despite the spending.
A net profit, as always.
Funny how that bit never makes the headline, isn’t it?
The credit for this window belongs to the manager, and the day Martin walks out of that door you’ll find out exactly how much of a storm Dermot Desmond is
Take the Irishman out of the equation tomorrow.
Ask yourself honestly what happens next.
You know the answer as well as I do.
The purse strings tighten, the recruitment goes quiet, and the Record starts writing about prudent business models and challenging market conditions.
Because the money was never the man.
The man was only ever the permission.
Storm Desmond?
Away and dry yourself…
Key Takeaways
- Michael Gannon claims Scottish football is in trouble with ‘Storm Desmond,’ but the reality is there is no such storm.
- The author argues that Dermot Desmond has never invested his own money in Celtic players; all funds come from the club and its supporters.
- Celtic’s summer signings are not due to Desmond’s generosity but rather respect for manager Martin O’Neill’s wishes.
- Despite spending this summer, Celtic remains financially sound, indicating Desmond’s role is merely that of a custodian, not a benefactor.
- The article credits the successful recruitment to O’Neill, suggesting that without him, the club would struggle under Desmond’s management.
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I thought that gannon was alright not too long ago but over the summer he came out with iheanacho was demanding 50 thousand and Sarrachi demanding big money .wonder who was telling him that . These people in the media coming out with comments like that . Celtic fans are the people that generate the profits not mr Desmond.
There is no question Celtic Football Club would be miles better off without this guy. We would be much further on and more successful if he was out of the equastion. I’ve never liked the guy, Celtic is only a business to him and his only interest is golf, nothing else golf.
I think you might find that the sportswear firm created by that German gentleman Adolf(Adi)Dassler may have had a word in Dermot the Donkey’s shell like and told the parasitic kant that they are not in business to mass produce warehouses full of replica kits etcetera to arrive at their one season sell by dates still in their wrappers.
Martin O’Neil may well have tried to persuade him to make us competitive again in Europe but you are 100% right about one thing, as soon as MON leaves the building we will be selling off the family jewels and replacing with dross.
I hope he realises there will be massive queues at his gravestone when he croaks but only to relieve themselves and not to pay homage.
Dermot Desmond is only a shareholder just like any other one. He is a major shareholder not the majority shareholder. Unfortunetly our board cow tow to him unlike other PLC boards who run the companies and only ansewr to shareholders at AGMs. If they do well they continue, if not they get sacked. Celtic PLC remind me of the RBS board when Fred the shred ran RBS the board where all nodding dogs just like Celtic PLC.
Just another example from the anti Celtic tabloids and the daily Record in particular giving it negativity stories a couple of days before a massive CL match in which they all should be united in supporting a Scottish club in Europe? I have to question the timing of Gannon’s tale once again ? Has it been sanctioned from a higher source at the rag Record …..a make as much disruption in print as you can type of thing ? It happens constantly with the tabloids and Celtic . All done in a subtle manner in which to try to give off another way of being completely pessimistic . That’s the daily Record …a first choice go to mob for news that the board trusts and stands by …. defiantly !