NEIL LENNON has leapt to the defence of chief executive Peter Lawwell after a shareholder questioned the size of his pay packet at the club’s AGM yesterday.
Lawwell collected over £3m in remuneration from Celtic in the last year once bonuses are included, but Lennon says that he is worth every single penny that the club pays for his services.
“I’ve been in football for a long, long time as a player, coach and manager and Peter is the best, and sometimes you have to pay for the best,” Lennon said.
“He could have left the club or two of three occasions.
“He makes unpopular decisions with supporters at times and with managers at times, but he does it for the best for the club whether it be in the present time or the future.
“We are lucky to have him. I have a brilliant working relationship with him and think he is worth every penny he is paid.”
Celtic chairman Ian Bankier echoed the sentiments of the club’s manager, as the shareholder questioned why Lawwell’s salary has increased so much since he started working at the club some 16 years ago.
“We have just re-elected Peter Lawwell by a very, very substantial majority,” Bankier said.
“It’s easy to say that in 2003 a Mars Bar cost 20 pence and now it’s £1.30.
“It looks bad, but, honestly, we take our responsibilities very professionally and very seriously about finances and funds and expenditure of the company.
“We buy value for money, we buy in the market and we buy what market prices are as best we can.
“I would have absolutely no hesitation in saying Peter Lawwell is worth every penny that we pay him.
“I’m not going to go on about it because even Peter Lawwell gets embarrassed at times.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here