Dermot Desmond turned Celtic into an impenetrable investment vehicle | OneFootball

A Peek Behind the Curtain: The 2005 Whitewash – How Celtic’s Board designed the perfect corporate fortress is the the second of a two part controversial column from Colin Dempster…

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland is pictured with Irish businessman Dermot Desmond during the Pro Am event prior to the Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club on July 07, 2021 in North Berwick, Scotland. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

The Strategic Umbrella: Joining Forces to Fight

So where does that leave us? Are we permanently relegated to being passive spectators of our own stagnation, listening to access-media gatekeepers tell us there is “nothing we can do”?

Absolutely not. We don’t need courtroom litigation, and we certainly don’t need to look to outside millionaires to fight our battles for us. If my column from yesterday proved anything, it’s that the support already possesses a highly sophisticated parallel network capable of challenging this institutional inertia.

When the collective workforce or a mass consumer base coordinate, the architecture of power is forced to bend. The real engineering blueprint for resistance doesn’t lie in individual fans screaming pointlessly at an AGM. It lies in activating the infrastructure of dissent through strategic umbrella groups executing highly organised commercial leverage.

By pooling our collective power—literally joining forces so our small parts act as one single group—the grassroots can systematically target the executive suite’s optional corporate margin.

Celtic fans hold up a banner during the Scottish Premier league match between Celtic and Rangers at Celtic Park on September 10, 2016. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

If the corporate machine wants to define success strictly by numbers on a balance sheet, then the support must respond in the only language a PLC understands: the bottom line. When fan syndicates, share-pooling initiatives, and organised supporter groups align to withhold the optional revenue that fuels their pristine balance sheets, the insulated shield begins to crack.

A unified support doesn’t need to beg for accountability from the pitch-side dugout. By weaponising our collective economic footprint and coordinating our shared assets, we force the corporate boardroom onto a stage where they can no longer hide behind clinical PR scripts. We have the numbers, we have the organisation, and we have the capacity to fight back on our own terms.

The Reality Beyond the PR Exercise

This is why the traditional press box and their corporate gatekeepers panic whenever these financial realities are dragged into the light. They operate entirely within a PR exercise, dealing in emotional deflections and standard speeches about how “Dermot Desmond is a minority shareholder but has all the power, so there is nothing we can do.”

Celtic Park. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

They want you to believe it’s an unchangeable act of God. They don’t want you to realise it was an engineered fiscal blueprint—and they certainly don’t want you to realise that the machine is entirely dependent on our collective compliance.

Dermot Desmond doesn’t draw an executive salary from the club’s weekly payroll. He doesn’t need to. His initial £31 million cumulative investment has matured into an unrealised fortress worth well over £80 million on paper, fuelled entirely by capital appreciation and structured preference share dividends funded directly by match-day consumers.

Welcome to Celtic Park. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

An impenetrable investment vehicle

The 2005 blueprint did not just build a training facility at Lennoxtown; it constructed a permanent corporate shield for institutional stagnation. It separated financial health from elite sporting ambition, transforming a football club into an impenetrable investment vehicle.

But an engineered problem always has an engineered solution. The fragmented architecture of our current resistance is exactly what allows the executive boardroom to isolate and dismiss us. Therefore, the immediate tactical imperative is a call to action for every dissident group, fan trust, share syndicate, and independent supporter club globally to formally join forces. We do not need to build this machine from scratch; the foundation and the structure are already sitting right within our global fanbase.

From Glasgow to New York, Dublin to Sydney, the infrastructure is already active in every supporter’s club and digital network.

We simply must bundle these existing parallel networks together into a singular, unified union of Celtic fans worldwide. By pooling our assets and acting as one, this global union will possess the coordinated economic and voting weight needed to finally shift the gears.

Two Celtic fans are seen during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on August 29, 2026. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

By consolidating our power into one global front, we can apply relentless, unpassable pressure on the board to permanently modernise the football and scouting departments, drag our recruitment operations into the 21st century, and aggressively maximise the club’s global revenue streams to serve sporting success rather than corporate hoarding.

Until the support stops fighting in factions, ceases compliance, and coordinates its parallel power to starve the machine of its optional margin, the boardroom will continue to spin its wheels, count its cash, and ignore the firestorm.

The curtain has been pulled back and the illusion is gone. Just like the Wizard of Oz, we can finally see that the imposing corporate facade is just someone frantically pulling levers behind the scenes to protect a balance sheet.

Ross Desmond at the 2025 Celtic AGM. Photo social media

FIGHTING AT AGM SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED

This entire mechanism is fundamentally flawed, under the men in the suit’s strategy, they have no interest in how our football department performs in Europe, FIGHTING AT AGM SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED. Now it is up to every individual supporter to make a choice. We either accept this lifeless corporate mediocrity and hand the future to our rivals or free ourselves from the autocratic governance that goes against Fergus McCann’s vision and fight for our heritage a club fit for the 21st century and beyond.

Fergus McCann Celtic director MD with model of new east Stand for Celtic Park

We need to unite by forming a global union—call it the Celtic Fans Collective or vote for a name but get the membership started, the framework is there, the leaders are there let’s run an election and vote —giving every single fan a voice wherever you are in the world—the Celtic family.

Get in the fight to reclaim Celtic, and let’s get this done.

Please urge all groups to come together as one. The tracks are clear; the engineer’s work is done. The curtain is now closed.

Colin Dempster

Green, white and silverware by Matthew Marr