PETER Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, has urged Scotland’s local and national politicians to embrace a more progressive attitude to help the Glasgow club’s ambitions of growth.
Lawwell revealed after the announcement of Brendan Rodgers’ extended four-year contract as manager, that Celtic are still keen to redevelop the areas around Celtic Park and create a commercial zone including a hotel.
However, the chief executive is far from impressed by the response to Celtic’s ideas, despite pointing out the huge contribution the Scottish champions make to the economy.
“Whether in the city or the country, there is a reticence to support us and football,” said Lawwell. “We as a football club put so much into the economy. You need partnership. There has really been no sense of partnership in terms of taking things forward, from anybody.
“The amount of economic contribution we make, not just in terms of our supporters but the rates and PAYE tax we pay to the Chancellor. Particularly in terms of Glasgow, we are a very important employer. I don’t think there is the appropriate recognition of what we do as an industry by politicians. If we had support, I think we could have something special to create a Glasgow sports city here, with the Hydro, and everything else. Something like that would help Celtic and help the city.”
Lawwell explained that Celtic have a planning decision due in August on a the club’s commercial proposal. “Seven years ago, we put in a masterplan to Glasgow City Council which included the museum, hotel and residential flats,” he said. “We’ve now bought all the land around here.”
The Celtic chief executive recognised that critics will claim Glasgow could not sanction a commercial move which would benefit only one club.
“That is the nature of this city,” he said. “If you have Celtic who are progressive, say, and Rangers, over the last five years, have been trying to re-establish themselves, we have been looking forward and they have been looking at today and tomorrow and trying to keep going
“The difficulty for politicians is to recognise that Celtic is progressive and to help us because someone is going to say: ‘Well, you are doing that for Celtic. What are you going to do for Rangers?’ Clearly, it is politics and there are votes to be had. People are very wary of doing that. We have come to a point of coping with and dealing with that.”
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