Celtic PLC AGM 2008 Report

This year's AGM followed the usual format in the sense that the proceedings began with three video presentations by the Chairman, John Reid, the Chief Executive, Peter Lawwell and the manager, Gordon Strachan. Thereafter, the main business was taken care of in terms of the ordinary resolutions and then the usual Q&A session.

Video presentations:

The main items of interest arising from the video presentations were:

• A discussion of the attempts by Arsenal to headhunt Peter Lawwell which were ultimately unsuccessful. The Chairman reiterated his desire for him to stay. This seemed to reflect the general mood since the only standing ovations of the day were for GS and PL.
• An announcement of a plan to pick up on the UN's call for countries to donate 0.7% of their GNP to development projects: Celtic announced that it was now committing itself to donating 0.7% of its turnover to charity. This was very warmly welcomed by everyone and specifically by the Trust who congratulated the Board on making this decision; the first of its kind in football. However, the shine was subsequently taken from it slightly when it transpired that this sum had to be raised by the fans and was not to be taken directly from revenues.
• A discussion by the chairman of the issue of the racist singing of the Rangers’ fans. This was wholeheartedly condemned by Reid in no uncertain terms. He also called on Celtic fans to police their own behaviour by not singing certain songs which he refused to specify. He made some criticisms, as usual, of the ‘away support’ (you would think this was an entirely separate group of people, the way the club and the media talk about them) but, to his credit, did make clear that anything that they sing is in no way on a par with the racist filth spewed out by the fans of some other clubs.

• The Chairman was also asked by Tony Hamilton his view on the “Celtic Trust’s ‘fan on the board’ idea”. This distortion of the CT proposals which gave Reid a straw man to destroy has subsequently been raised with Celtic. We are happy to have the debate but if Celtic is going to discuss our proposals, they should at least represent them correctly and not some version of them which allows the reply which Reid gave ie the current board members are all fans and you can’t just be a fan. The Trust did point this out at the AGM and attempted to correct this deliberate piece of misinformation.

Resolutions

Members will know from elsewhere on this site that we failed to get our resolutions on to the PLC AGM agenda this year. The other resolutions were all pretty straightforward eg accepting the accounts, reappointing the auditors etc. Brian Wilson, Dermot Desmond and Peter Lawwell were all up for re-election this year and all were reappointed with a similar massive majority of the shares (as would be expected given the distribution of the shareholding). Members of the Trust board cast their votes as individuals (we had no mandate otherwise) but most of the officers voted against the reelection of Wilson and Desmond on the grounds that they are strongly opposed to the founding principles of the Trust. There is to be an EGM (Friday 21 November) to deal with some resolutions which were not properly notified by the Company Secretary, Robert Howatt. We will indicate our views on this in good time.

Question and Answer Session

The first two questions took up a good deal of the time: one about the failure of the club to sign a left-back and one from someone complaining about being moved from his usual seat for CL games. The Chairman allowed some considerable time for these questions which, arguably, were not AGM business.

The Celtic Trust raised the following questions:

Questions for the AGM 1
(JF congratulated the board on announcing an intention to donate 0.7% of their turnover to charity. She also challenged a section of the Chairman’s video presentation when he was asked if there would be a change in attitude towards the ‘fan on the board’ issue under his chairmanship. He said a) all the people on the board were fans and that b) to be on a PLC board you had to be more than just a fan. She pointed out that the Celtic Trust had always predicated their proposals on the idea that there should be a ‘suitably qualified’ representative of the supporters appointed to the board and that the Chairman’s remarks were therefore fully in line with the Trust’s position!]
“I wish to raise a question about the issue of the club’s use of a travel partner, and regarding the recent dealings with Thomas Cook in particular. I understand that after Seville, when so many firms in the travel industry made such huge profits from the travelling support that Celtic understandably began to look for ways in which these profits might come to Celtic to be used building the team. However, what we now have is that Celtic enters into arrangements with travel companies to the detriment of the majority of regular travelling supporters. We now have travel companies, and Thomas Cook is only the latest, who, on the back of a guaranteed allocation of tickets from Celtic, then overcharge fans for the privilege of travelling with them – if and when it is profitable for them to do so. When it is not then they offer no service and fans are left to get on with it.
So essentially, Celtic are entering into deals with private companies and forcing fans to stump up more money to support the team so that Thomas Cook can make more profits and Celtic can get a cut also.

We now have the obscenity of Thomas Cook being given enough guaranteed tickets to take 33 49-seater buses to Manchester at £95 a head and driving long standing supporters clubs who go to every game (not just the glamour games) off the road. Long standing supporters buses have really struggled to run buses to Manchester because the allocation of tickets to independent travellers has been cut to the bone. This is not about security either because you are taking bus loads of people who may have no history of travelling and whose behaviour cannot be monitored by Thomas Cook. This is about greed. Celtic has no automatic right to make money out of the decision by individual fans or groups of fans to travel to support their team. However, if they offered a decent service then many fans would want to support it. This is not a decent service, it is a rip off and the PLC should be ashamed of colluding in this abuse of their own supporters. My question is: are the Board aware of the growing discontent around this issue and are they not concerned that season ticket sales might be affected by the fact that when people cannot rely on getting a fair crack of the whip for European and domestic away tickets (unless they submit to being fleeced by Thomas Cook) then they might decide just to give up their season tickets and buy tickets for home games on a match by match basis?”
Reply from Board:

PL replied on behalf of the board to say that they were aware of the discontent; that they would never get it right; that they would be holding discussions with supporters groups to discuss what the situation would be after the expiry of the Thomas Cooke deal next year and he also indicated some particular problems with the small number of tickets for Manchester.

Kenny Butler, on behalf of the Trust asked the following set of three questions:

1. Last year the Celtic Trust raised the question of whether or not Dr Reid had a potential business use to the majority shareholder. Dr Reid assured shareholders, at that time, that he had no business connections to Dermot Desmond. Can the Chairman now tell us why, just 10 days after giving that assurance, did he accept payment for giving a speech to a group of companies controlled by Mr Desmond? Does this not raise an issue of trust between the chairman and the shareholders?
2. I want to raise a question about the relationship between the shareholders and the PLC Board. At last year’s AGM, out of approximately 22,000 shareholders, only 1,388 shareholders actually used their vote either in person or by proxy – that is 6.3%. Despite this, statements were released after the AGM proclaiming that 97% of shareholders voted for the resolutions put forward that day from the Board, including the election of Dr Reid. In actual fact, 25% of those who actually cast their vote, voted against that particular resolution.

Does the Board not feel that in a PLC like Celtic which relies on customer loyalty to a far greater extent than other businesses, and where the majority of those who own shares, own them because they support the club and not because they want to make money out of them; that this low level of engagement between shareholders and the PLC is a problem? Does it not suggest that there is a problem of communication between the Board and the small shareholder/supporters who bought shares in such large numbers and are always ready to give their support unstintingly both financially and in terms of their support of the team?
3. Following on from the issue of Thomas Cook, I would like to ask the Board for some explanation of the ticket allocation scheme for away tickets in general ie both European and away games. There are many people who are now becoming quite disillusioned by the way in which tickets are being distributed. I understand that you can never please everybody, but fair-minded people will accept not getting a ticket as long as they feel they have had a fair crack of the whip. Growing numbers of people don’t feel like that. Add to that they nonsense surrounding the surcharge imposed by Celtic on other clubs which was then passed straight on to the travelling support – the same, much maligned travelling support, which the Chairman had a kick at the other week when he was supposed to be challenging the racist abuse which we have to put up with at Parkhead when Rangers comes to call!
Does the Board not accept the principle that the people who should have first call on tickets are those who travel to every game ( home and abroad) at every stage of every competition? Is this not the only fair way to allocate tickets which are in high demand? In the end, can you run a business by persistently kicking your most loyal customers in the teeth?

In answer to the first question the Chairman re-iterated his position that he does not have a business relationship with Dermot Desmond but that he did take part in a paid speaking engagement to some of his companies. In answer to the second question, Robert Howatt outlined the ways in which they contact shareholders and simply said it was up to them if they came to AGMs or not.

Conclusion

By and large it was pretty standard fair but the Trust, small as we are, is still the main force behind putting the difficult questions to the Board, holding them accountable and keeping the system as clean as it can be with such disparity in shareholdings. We are committed to continuing to do so, and to avoid the mistakes we made this year in putting our resolutions. If there is anyone out there who supports our general position and wishes to get involved then please get in touch.