It is once again the Elephant in the Room at the Celtic AGM and annoyingly for Peter Lawwell and the rest of the Celtic Board, it’s a Persistent Elephant this one that simply won’t forget about what happened back in 2011 at the Scottish FA.
Resolution 12 is back on the agenda at tomorrow’s AGM at Celtic Park and the Board are almost certain to vote down the motion that the club should now take the matter directly to UEFA after the failing of the Scottish FA to refer the matter to CAS, as their own review panel advised them to do almost two years ago.
Celtic acted decisively against the Green Brigade this week after their continued use of pyrotechnics incurred fine after fine from UEFA. The level of these fines, around £10k is small change compared to the revenue Celtic lost as a result of the actions of the Scottish FA in awarding a licence to a member club in 2011 when they did not meet the criteria. The loss to Celtic was not £10k but more like £10m.
The Resolutioners have been pursuing this on their own, with only the help of crowd funding from the Celtic support. Our club has been passive, perhaps hoping that the passing of time would commit the matter to the dustbin. The Res 12 team might just give up, lose interest and just throw in the towel. Who could really blame them if they did, given the battle they have fought and the resistance they have faced?
Tomorrow the Celtic Board will have to face a few awkward minutes but they’ll have a strategy or two in place. There may be a plant in the audience who will make everyone laugh while demanding to know why Scotty Sinclair doesn’t get a game or why Jack Hendry was signed in the first place or something along those lines. He could demand to know why we seldom threaten from corners, or why the pies have gone up in price by 10p.
And of course there is the Board created smoke and mirrors that is the conveniently timed ban on the Green Brigade announced just two days before the AGM. This was noted last night on The Celtic Star, by one of the Resolutioners on a blog and by the Green Brigade in their statement released this evening.
The reluctance of the Celtic Board to deal decisively with Resolution 12 is quite frankly baffling. What have they got to lose or is it a case of what have they got to hide? There is perhaps a feeling in the boardroom that this is a fringe issue that concerns only a tiny percentage of the Celtic support. But even if that was the case, which is certainly is not, there still seems to be no reason whatsoever for Celtic not to take the perfectly reasonable position that the Scottish FA have had more than enough time to act on this.
All Peter Lawwell has to do is say ‘Enough is enough, we can wait no longer and refer the entire matter directly to UEFA. Suddenly he’s a hero, he’s doing his job, as a good and extremely highly paid CEO. He’s proving that’s he’s good value for money.
So why don’t you just do the right think Peter?
On the next page there is a detailed summary of the issues involved in Resolution 12 and where things stand at the time of Celtic’s 2019 AGM from the Res 12 Bhoys themselves. Please read and share if you can. Other Res 12 friendly Celtic blogs will also be doing their bit on this so hopefully this information is widely read over the next day or so.