Is Dermot Desmond REALLY a Celtic fan? I’ll tell you why he REALLY isn’t…

The role of a principal shareholder and non-executive director at a football club is to sit in the background and enjoy the dividends their investment affords them.

At a normal football club, a NED acts as an independent advisor who provides objective oversight, strategic guidance, and governance without managing the club’s day to day operations.

Unlike executive directors (such as the Chief Executive Officer or Managing Director), NEDs are not full-time employees and do not handle daily tasks like player transfers, staff hiring, or commercial deals.

So, if you are to take all of the above into account, Dermot Desmond might be a NED by title, but he certainly does not act like one at Celtic.

It is Michael Nicholson’s job to run the club.

This is what his title dictates he should be doing.

He is a full time employee, he earns £17k a week for that particular privilege.

Here is where things are flipped on their head at Celtic.

Silent Mike does little to nothing within his remit, in fact he does the opposite.

He does what he is told to do by Dermot Desmond.

In addition to that, he is paid handsomely for his co-operation in this particular arrangement.

This, in turn, gives Dermot Desmond free reign to do what he likes at Celtic

So, as a NED, he gets to run the club, which is clearly not in his remit either.

You see what I mean by everything being flipped on its head at the club now?

This is why Celtic is in the regressive position it currently finds itself in.

Because basically, one man has been given an unchallenged free reign to treat it as his own personal fiefdom.

But you knew that already.

Those of you smart enough out there to see it, spotted it a long time ago.

So realistically, I’m preaching to the converted here.

At the same time, I felt it was important to clarify this for those of you who didn’t fully understand it.

Which brings me on to the question posited in the title.

Is Dermot Desmond REALLY a Celtic fan?

Well, he tells everyone that he is, but I don’t believe it for a second.

No Celtic fan would treat a club like Celtic in the way he has, especially in the last two years.

If Dermot Desmond was a Celtic fan, then he would understand Celtic fans.

He would understand how passionate Celtic fans are, and how Celtic is a way of life for us.

To comprehend that, you have to be a true Celtic fan.

Dermot Desmond is not that.

An individual who consistently works against the wishes of the Celtic fanbase, cannot be a Celtic fan

This is not rocket science.

So if he is not a Celtic fan, then what is he?

He doesn’t make vast fortunes out of Celtic in comparison to the rest of his portfolio of businesses.

So why then, does he exert so much control over Celtic?

There could be many answers to that question.

I don’t know the exact answer to it, but for what it’s worth, here’s my opinion.

Of all the businesses Desmond owns and controls, Celtic is the one with the largest customer base

Celtic’s worldwide fanbase is estimated at between 9 and 12 million supporters globally.

Because tracking a precise number is difficult due to changing metrics, this figure is heavily rooted in a landmark study conducted by Capita Consulting and the Cranfield Institute, which has remained the benchmark for the club’s international scale.

So firstly, for Desmond to know that he controls a club with a fanbase and customer base this large, this results in several different things, hubris, megalomania, corporate narcissism, and a feeling of imperiousness.

When anybody tastes this kind of power, they are incredibly reluctant to give up this level of institutional control because it alters their brain chemistry, identity, and lifestyle.

Letting go of Celtic doesn’t just mean losing control of an institute of our club’s magnitude to Desmond, to him, it feels like an existential threat.

This is why there is such a feeling of hopelessness amongst the fanbase when it comes to removing the Desmond’s from the club.

Ross Desmond has now got a taste for this.

He road tested it at the last AGM.

The resultant reaction probably gave him and his father an ego trip to feed their already over-inflated egos

This is what they thrive on.

Knowing they have that power over us, and we can do little to nothing about it.

They know it’s driving us to distraction, and they clearly derive some sort of sadistic pleasure from it.

If Desmond and nepo-baby were real Celtic fans, they would instead derive pleasure off driving Celtic to be the best it could possibly be.

It is clear they are not doing that.

Nor do they have any intention of doing so.

Which brings me to the main thrust of this article.

Bear with me because there is method to this madness.

Here’s the million dollar question?

Why did Desmond really invest in Celtic?

Well, the answer to that lies back in the early 2000’s.

Desmond had a stake in Manchester United back then.

Here is where things get very interesting.

Desmond decided to sell his stake in Manchester United in May 2005.

He made £12 million from that sale (about £23 million in today’s money).

What’s important to note here is that 7 months later, he underwrote £10 million as part of the £15 million share issue launched by Celtic in December 2005.

This was where he acquired his 34.7% stake in the club.

So you see, the money Desmond made from the sale of his Manchester United stake-holding financed his bid to become the principal shareholder at Celtic

However, while being involved with Manchester United, this opened Desmond’s eyes to the riches available to clubs in the Premier League.

Which is why he aggressively championed the idea of moving Celtic and Rangers out of the Scottish Premier League to join the EPL.

Driven by a desire to access the massive broadcasting revenues down south, Desmond repeatedly stated that an eventual move to England was inevitable.

Nearly quarter of a century later, we are still in the Scottish Premiership, and no nearer to ever joining the EPL.

Desmond’s ‘O** F***’ dream remains exactly that, a dream.

Back then, Desmond recognised that Celtic was a global behemoth constrained by a small domestic TV market.

He argued that entering the English top flight was the “holy grail” that would allow the club to financially compete with the biggest teams in the world.

Like the “holy grail” itself, getting Celtic to the EPL has become as about as elusive as the miraculous chalice

It’s also a well known fact that Desmond and Peter Lawwell joined forces with Martin Bain at Rangers 1872 in 2011 in an attempt to spearhead a second attempt to gain access to the “holy grail”.

But the subsequent death of Rangers 1872 put paid to any notions that this would ever happen.

There is no doubt that Desmond was, and still is, bitter about this.

Is his bitterness part of the reason he holds Celtic back so much?

During his time being involved with Manchester United, Desmond saw a club that has a worldwide support of between 350 million and 1 billion.

It is clear he saw Celtic being catapulted into that category if he could just get them into the EPL.

This would be the ultimate achievement, and addition to his portfolio.

He would forever be lauded as the man who put Celtic in the same category as Manchester United and other clubs of that size

But alas, it was never meant to be.

And maybe, just maybe, he’s still bitter about that, and we’re paying the price because of it.

Instead, Celtic is destined to ply its trade in a tinpot league, with its biggest rival being a bastardised version of the club Desmond wanted to help partner his drive to the EPL.

Maybe the way he is driving Celtic to become a club that has to fight for the title against the Ibrox side is all designed to resurrect his O** F*** Inc. dream of the EPL and all of its associated riches?

Perhaps he feels the partnership would be better marketed this way?

Who knows?

Maybe it’s a combination of his ego, hubris and meglomania?

We’ll never know for sure.

What we do know for sure, though, is that Dermot Desmond is not really a Celtic fan

Because if he was, he would see Europe, and the Champions League as our “holy grail”.

And he would never allow our arch rivals to be in a position to challenge us.

We are where we are today because Dermot Desmond dictates that we should be.

Nobody else.

A non executive director has been given full control of our club.

Everybody knows that this should never be the case.

Yet we are powerless to do anything about it.

Celtic is Dermot Desmond’s plaything now, and he enjoys playing with it.

Because it never became the financial behemoth he craved it would be, he derives pleasure from the hubris it now affords him.

He doesn’t care about the average Celtic fan like you or me.

Because he is not a Celtic fan.

If you can’t see that by now, you never will.

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