There was a big surprise yesterday when the BBC were allowed to continue to host Children in Need. and there was no surprise at all when Celtic PLC decided to reject the Living Wage resolution at the AGM.

No, no fucking surprise at all.

However, Peter Lawwell did make a hilarious quip about Rangers not being the same club, and all was well in the world.

Celtic, the club supported by people largely descended from the poor of late nineteenth century Glasgow, finally showed that while all that is a nice wee marketing tool, it bears no resemblance to the modern day version of the club.

Each and every member of the board should have been taken outside and had their heads banged off the statue of Brother Walfrid until a little bit of what this club actually stands for sunk into their consciousness.

After the AGM, Lawwell made the following statement, which showed he hadn’t been listening;

Oddly enough, someone else in the room picked up what he was whispering just before he began…

” Shit , is it finished ? Pass me my speech .

“Well, who had it last ?

“Neil, is it under that menu ? ”

“Oh, bollocks, I left it in the car ”

” Can somebody nip out and get it for me ?  No, theres no time. I’ll wing it, let me see, thanks for coming, important you had your say, money in the bank, great  club, great fans, fuck the living wage, see you next year, don’t mention the huns..okay, i’m ready. ”

Then he stood up, and the great man improvised.

“As ever, the Celtic AGM was a lively event and of course a great opportunity to hear the wide range of views amongst our shareholders and supporters, something we do throughout the year”.

“Fundamentally, I think this year’s AGM demonstrated the fantastic place the club is in, Scottish Champions, double winners, a Champions League club and in a secure position off the field.  We look forward to the future with confidence and I think the comments and the good mood today reflected that.

“There was a lot of focus on the Living Wage issue and indeed some confusion. Clearly this is a relatively new and very well-intentioned campaign.

“We understand that Celtic is a big football club and scrutiny will always be on us, but let’s be clear, this is not solely a Celtic issue. We are not aware of any other football club in the UK which has adopted this and, outwith football, there are thousands of other organisations who have not signed up to the Living Wage.

“For clarity, Celtic Football Club pays the Government’s statutory wage level or higher.”

“The wellbeing of our staff is one of our prime concerns. Our staff, like our supporters, make Celtic the great club it is.

“At Celtic we are pleased to have a very content workforce, one where the overwhelming majority of staff at the club are with us for many years. We do all we can to ensure that this is the case, offering a competitive package and continually reviewing of terms and conditions

“We consult regularly with our staff and we are also the only club in Scotland to have achieved and retained the Investors in People Standard.”

“Finally, we were also pleased today to update our supporters on events in Amsterdam.

“I am sure our fans will agree this is an issue where we have been proactive in our approach. We are proud of our reputation and we will tackle any accusations of mistreatment of our fans very seriously. It is an issue we will tackle head on.”

( Sooner or later. Probably. In the fullness of time. At the appropriate juncture. )

“I would like to thank all the shareholders who attended today. On behalf of everyone at Celtic, I thank you all for your continued commitment to and support of the club”.

Peter, you really have no idea what you have just done. But then, when you lose your current job, you are unlikely to be worried about the rent.

If you thought Peter was suffering from a complete detachment from reality, have a look at this , from Ian Bankier, which is ever so nearly rhyming slang;

( For those who don’t know who he is, he is involved in the whisky business. his shops apparently sell bottles of whisky which can be as expensive as £150,000. You see supporters with them all the time, the bottles wrapped in newspaper for protection )

“178 employees were on minimum wage and changing them to the living level would cost around £500,000.”

( Fuck me-thats nearly four bottles of whisky! )

So, lets do the maths.

178 people, on an extra £2 per hour, working say twenty hours a week, for fifty two weeks a year, comes to £370, 240.

And nobody was even asking for as much as two quid an hour extra.

And the ground isn’t open every week.

” most of the workers involved were part-time, undertaking match-day jobs at Celtic Park as second sources of income.”

( Yes, because they need the money. Which doesn’t mean you can take advantage of them )

“the club would not recognise unions but did not object to them.”

Bankier reminded us that “Charity is in our DNA ”

Which probably raised more laughs than the jibe about Rangers.

Jeannette Findlay of the Celtic Trust called the decision;

“one of the grubbiest and divisive decisions made by a Celtic board”. and she reminded the board that;

“Our ethics, our social responsibility, is more than just a marketing ploy, something to be packaged up and sold.”

The Evening Times asked ;

Has apple fallen far from tree founded on charitable roots?

It appears not only has it fallen far from the roots, its rolled out of the orchard and is trundling off down the street, with no indication that its going to stop anytime soon.

And as for the resolution on investigating the licence issue to First Rangers, who didn’t meet the criteria to be given one, and thus wrongly competed in the UEFA Champions League ( granted , not for very long ) , Bankier said;

“I can advise that meetings have taken place with some of the requisitioners involved and I’m pleased to report those meetings were very positive.

“They’ve assisted us to understand the concerns of the shareholders and a line of communication has been established, one that will continue.

“The board has laid out a case for doing all we can to protect the club and proceed with a stand-alone strategy. I propose the vote be adjourned indefinitely.”

Or, roughly translated;

It’s clear that the Board has agreed that your new policy is really an excellent plan. But in view of some of the doubts being expressed, may I propose that I recall that after careful consideration, the considered view of the Board  was that, while they considered that the proposal met with broad approval in principle, that some of the principles were sufficiently fundamental in principle, and some of the considerations so complex and finely balanced in practice that in principle it was proposed that the sensible and prudent practice would be to submit the proposal for more detailed consideration, laying stress on the essential continuity of the new proposal with existing principles, the principle of the principal arguments which the proposal proposes and propounds for their approval. In principle.

Which means that the grapevine was correct. Its been dropped.

Lawwells gamble that his petulant wisecrack about Rangers would hog the headlines and deflect from the real issues of the AGM has backfired

“Rory Bremmer can pretend to be Tony Blair.”

He defended this by saying, somewhat predictably;

“I was just injecting a wee bit of humour into proceedings.”

Second Rangers, however, have released a statement;

“The club are disappointed with the comments attributed to Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell earlier today.

“Rangers FC, now in its 141st year, has a proud history which has been recognised by the football authorities and was noted in a recent SPL Commission determination.

“The club will now take this matter up with the relevant football authorities.

“I was just injecting a wee bit of humour into proceedings.”

Their support was furious. Billy McBiggott, a long time diary reference for how the hordes are feeling , asked me to copy this email from a concerned fan;

Sirs,
as you may be aware Mr Peter Lawwell, as reported by the official Celtic FC Twitter account, stated earlier today when asked about the media reporting of a new club as an old club, that “Rory Bremner can pretend to be Tony Blair”. He was of course alluding to Rangers Football Club, an SFA member club and Mr Lawwell was suggesting that the existing club was in some way merely an impersonation of the ‘real’ Rangers. I believe this comment to be ill-advised, at odds with the SFA position and inflammatory, designed as it was to disparage Rangers Football Club and pander to the malign minority among the Celtic support. I feel that by making that comment Mr Lawwell has undermined any sense of integrity or neutrality he may have possessed in his role with the SFA, negated any goodwill from the Rangers support and quite possibly the Club, and fatally compromised his position on the SFA Professional Game Board. This being the case I feel that Mr Lawwell’s position within the SFA must be reviewed in the interests of professional integrity if any trust is to be developed and maintained between the SFA , it’s member clubs and the fans whose support is so vital to these institutions. A large proportion of the football supporting public in Scotland has been alienated by Mr Lawwell’s comments today and action must be taken to address their genuine and justified disquiet. I await your reply with interest.
Yours sincerely

Wonder who wrote that for him ?

Anyway, that shouldn’t deflect from the PLC meeting yesterday.

If a supporter sings an inappropriate song, he is bringing the club into disrepute.

If a supporter unveils an inappropriate banner, he is bringing the club into disrepute.

Yet if the board refuses to uphold the very ethos of the club, that which is the  root of its identity, which in effect is the tie that binds us together, they somehow, think they will be allowed to continue to represent us.

There were some people watching the meeting yesterday, though not visible in the room.

Wonder what they thought of it?

These people cared about the club and the people associated with it, like you and I do.

Yesterdays quiz centred on the 3-0 defeat to Benfica in 1969, where the tie was won on the toss of a coin, which incidentally had the same method been used to decide whether or not to pay Celtics staff a living wage, would have given the resolution an infinitely better chance of being approved.

Todays quiz is a little more simple.

Re-arrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying;

Off. Fuck.

And apply it to the current stewards of Celtic.