Celtic Trust Is Right: Ross Desmond Owes Fans a Full Apology
The Celtic Trust is demanding an apology after Ross Desmond was permitted to attack shareholders despite holding no governance role at Celtic PLC.
Phillip Cooney 
The Celtic Trust is absolutely right to demand a full and unreserved apology for the disgraceful platform handed to Ross Desmond at Celtic’s 2025 AGM.
Its third proposed resolution calls on the Celtic chairman to apologise for allowing an individual with no role in the governance of Celtic PLC to address the meeting and “insult and denigrate” shareholders and supporters.
That apology is not merely justified. It is long overdue.
Ross Desmond’s extraordinary privilege
Ross Desmond is not a Celtic director, executive or official. Yet he was permitted to command the floor at a supposedly formal meeting of Celtic PLC and lecture the club’s shareholders.
Why was he granted that extraordinary privilege?
The obvious answer is that he is Dermot Desmond’s son. If his name had been Ross Smith, Ross Brown or Ross McDonald, would the Celtic board have allowed him to take over an AGM and attack the people challenging its performance?
Of course it would not.
This was nepotism in its most arrogant form. Family proximity to Celtic’s most powerful shareholder seemingly gave Ross Desmond a platform that ordinary shareholders could never expect to receive.
Celtic supporters were treated with contempt
The AGM should have allowed shareholders to scrutinise the people responsible for running Celtic. Instead, the board gave a privileged outsider the opportunity to turn legitimate criticism back on the support.
That was an abuse of the meeting and an insult to every shareholder who attended expecting accountability.
Celtic supporters invest their money, time and emotion in the club. Many are also shareholders with a legal and moral right to question its leadership. They did not deserve to be scolded by Dermot Desmond’s son simply because the board found their questions uncomfortable.
The Celtic Trust is therefore correct to demand a public commitment that this can never happen again.
Celtic must deliver a genuine apology
A carefully worded expression of regret will not be enough. Celtic must acknowledge that allowing Ross Desmond to make that address was wrong.
Ross Desmond should also apologise personally to the supporters and shareholders he chose to attack. He accepted the platform, used it to denigrate critics and helped deepen an already poisonous divide.
Celtic continually demands respect from its supporters. Respect, however, must travel in both directions.
The board created this embarrassment. Ross Desmond exploited it. Now both owe the Celtic support the full, direct and unreserved apology demanded by the Celtic Trust.
