Martin O’Neill, the Celtic caretaker manager, has claimed that Ross Desmond, the non-executive director of the Parkhead club and son of major shareholder Dermot, was entitled to speak out at the AGM yesterday and praised the significant contribution which his billionaire financier father has made to the Glasgow club.
Some of the fans at the Scottish champions’ stormy meeting reacted angrily to the personal statement which Desmond Jnr read out in response to the criticism which has been aimed in the direction of the board this season and chairman Peter Lawwell was forced to end the meeting.
But O’Neill, who returned to the Glasgow giants on an interim basis last month following the sudden departure of Brendan Rodgers after being contacted by his fellow Irishman, felt the businessman was correct to air his views on the off-field unrest and defend his stewardship of his boyhood heroes through his son.
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“He has every right to say what he said, absolutely,” he said. “I got this job 25 years ago because of one man really. He brought me in when he had bigger names to choose from, people who had better CVs, bigger CVs.
“I must admit, for the next couple of years I had the time of my life. It was fantastic. He brought me back here again. He did not say to me, ‘Your job is to quell the discontent’. It was to try and hold the fort until they get a proper manager in.
“So I have the utmost regard for him for what he has done at the football club and for the money that he has put in himself. I think that sometimes these things are forgotten.”
O’Neill continued, “I remember travelling to Lennoxtown in 2005 just before I left. They were thinking about moving to a new training ground. It was just the big castley sort of thing, just a set of fields.
“I go up there now and it's incredible. The players have everything. The pitches are immaculate. They are so well looked after. There have been changes that obviously cost a lot of money. Things have improved immensely.
“I'm not an apologist for the board. But the board have said that they've made mistakes. There's only so many times that you can apologise and then you have to get on with things again. A united Celtic will be far better equipped to compete and try and win again.”
The 73-year-old received a warm round of applause from Celtic shareholders when he was introduced at the start of the AGM – but he later admitted that he was bitterly disappointed at what transpired during the bad-tempered gathering.
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"I thought it was a really sad, sad morning,” he said. "I just wonder what the great Jock Stein, who preached unity at the football club, who said that a club not united would never be successful, would have thought of it all.
"It's as sad a morning as I've seen. I've been to a few of these AGMs before and I suppose because we've been doing well at the time that it was nice. I’m not even sure I was ever asked a question in them at the time. But that was rather raucous.
"There were people who had wanted to have asked questions. I wish now I had said a few words. But my words don't go down all that well in my own household, so I don't think it would make really much difference.”
Asked how long he would remain in interim charge as he prepared for the William Hill Premiership game against St Mirren in Paisley tonight, O’Neill said, “I'm probably a bit surprised that I am here. I thought maybe something might have got sorted out in the international break. But I think that there is definitely progress being made in that field.”
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