Q: Were you due to say a few words today Martin?
Martin O’Neill: “If I’d got an opportunity, I would probably be saying what I’m saying here. So I think that, yeah, I wish now I had said a few words. Listen, I don’t think, since my words don’t go down all that well in my own household, so I don’t think it would make really much difference, you know. I’ve got three people in my household who never listen to a word I say. But if given the opportunity, which might have occurred in the latter part of the AGM, yes, I would have said something.”
Q: When Ross Desmond spoke, it seemed to tip it for some shareholders on the floor, he was defending the board, he was defending his father, was he right to say what he said, and do you agree with what he said?
Martin O’Neill: “He has every right to say what he said, absolutely. And again, this is the point… I got this job 25 years ago because of one man, really. And he brought me in when he had bigger names to choose from, you know, people who had better CVs, bigger CVs, that type of stuff. And I come in from that viewpoint, and I’ve had, you know, I must admit for the next couple of years, I’ve had the time of my life, which was fantastic.
“And he brought me back here again. He did not say to me, your job is to quell the discontent. That wasn’t it. It was to try and just hold the fort until they get, as he said, a proper manager in, although I wasn’t really convinced about that one! I have the utmost regard for him at the end of it all, and I think that what he has done at the football club, and the money that he has put in himself, sometimes those things are forgotten.”
Peter Lawwell, Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay applaud during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Livingston at Celtic Park on August 23, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Q: When you’ve spoken to Peter Lawwell, when you’ve spoken to Michael Nicholson, what was their overall mood after it, could they believe what had happened?
Martin O’Neill: “Well, we had a little cup of tea in the boardroom afterwards, and yeah, I think there was just probably, I think they were expecting a tough time, but I think there maybe, I think there was a bit of shock as well around the room.”
Q: So they didn’t see anything like that coming, just expecting some sort of hard questions, but not that?
Martin O’Neill: “I got that impression, yeah, that’s right, and I think the impression would have been to at least have the opportunity for shareholders to ask some questions about the board and about where the football club is going on from here. So maybe try and learn from the past, if the past is recent then that’s, we’ve got to try and learn from it.
Martin’s quotes continue on the next page…
