Celtic AGM Q&A in full as Rod Stewart slammed, Lawwell snaps at 'obsessed' blogger and update on Celtic End

The Celtic AGM took place this morning and as always, the question-and-answer threw up some bizarre and fiery takes from the floor.

Brendan Rodgers’ side are flying high on the park, only suffering one loss so far this season, but shareholders still had some hard-hitting questions to as of the club’s board. The issues were wide-ranging from expanding Celtic Park to meet increased demand for season tickets, to one question wondering why Rod Stewart wasn't opening up his chequebook for the club. Treatment of fans at away ties in the Champions League and queries over why some fans find it impossible to get away tickets for Scottish Premiership matches.

One crazed punter even halted the Q&A to read out a two-minute prayer after dubbing Michael Nicholson as the "Godfather of Scottish football." It's an event on the Scottish football calendar that rarely disappoints and here, Football Scotland brings you the Celtic AGM question and answer section in FULL.

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Q1: Not a question, more observation on diversity at the board level. Delighted Joanne McNairn has been appointed at the board level. It’s very important that more women are in senior positions.

Peter Lawwell: The introduction of Joanne is really a sign that we've got a fresh perspective on the board and are acutely aware of the need for diversity in terms of gender, age and everything else. So we look at that continually. We take your point and note it and we're on the case.

Q2: Mr Chairman. Who was the last Celtic player to score against Rangers? Gary Hooper [in 2012].

*Met with laughter from the crowd.

Q2: [Starts a poem] James Dean was a rebel without a cause. I am a rebel with a cause - Celtic. I know I'm not supposed to say this but I'm going to anyway being a rebel. This season, we are going for 55. And if we make it, our 55 will be the real deal.

*More laughter and applause from the crowd.

Q2: [Continues poem] The term honest mistakes was coined by Hugh Dallas. The question is, who benefits from these honest mistakes? Check the statistics.

*Met with laughter in the room.

Q2: [Continues poem] VAR confirms two things we already knew. Total incompetence and a subconscious bias for one team… the problem with VAR in Scotland is that its run by the SFA. It's doubtful that the SFA could run a bath. The most famous soliloquy in the English language begins with the line, to be or not to be, that is the question. With apologies to Shakespeare, that line can be adapted slightly for Scottish football. To see or not to see, that is the question.

Peter Lawwell: We’re all enjoying your question. Hopefully we've got time to hear the rest. Would you mind jumping to the question?

Q2: [To Michael Nicholson ultimately] When Peter was chief executive, he was known as the Godfather of Scottish football. You are now the Godfather of Scottish football. You are now Al Pacino to Peter's Marlon Brando. Coming soon to a screen near you, Celtic fans in association with Shamrock Studios presents HD, 3D and VD - The Godfather 4. Starring Michael Nicholson, co-starring Brendan Rodgers as the hitman, John Clark as the kitman, Peter Lawwell as the chairman and Brian Wilson as the history man. And finally Mr Chairman, I would like to end with the 2024 version of Holy Arthur's prayer.

Michael Nicholson: A courteous smile.

Q2: A prayer next: Lord thank you for making me a Celtic supporter. Thanks for sending Brother Walfrid from Sligo to Glasgow, thank you for Jock Stein and the Lisbon Lions, thank you for sending Fergus McCann to live among us for five years, blessed be the bunnet, thank you for letting me on board the second voyage of Brendan even if it's just in economy class, thank you for giving the board the financial accumen for Celtic to have more money in the bank than all of Scotland's 41 other football clubs put together, thank you for getting Craig Whyte off his show trial of 2017, it's always good to see an innocent man walk free, thank you for making Celtic Park the biggest and best football stadium in Scotland. And finally Lord, thank you for making Celtic supporters the best football supporters in the world. Amen.

*Met in the room with a round of applause.

Peter Lawwell jokes: I'm sorry we've ran out of time. Thank you for attending the AGM... can we have the next question please.

Q3: Punter, aged 95, jokingly asks for a seat on the board. Says he would "definitely pull my weight".

*Met in the room with a round of applause.

Q4: Next shareholder praises Celtic FC Foundation staff after participating in the recent Sleep Out at Parkhead. Hopes the club can reward the staff as good as some of the other staff on our books.

Peter Lawwell: Thank you for taking part, it's really appreciated. You can see the output from the sacrifice you made and the commitment you made of taking part and the fantastic work that Tony and his team do. What you said makes us all up here very proud, thank you for saying that.

Michael Nicholson: Nothing that’s been achieved could be achieved without the people who work day in day out. We recognise that and look to recognise that and engage with them as well.

Q5: Asks for the board to be more transparent with disabled fans. Why have minutes from the fan forum not been published?

Michael Nicholson: I'm aware of issue, I know there's been a delay with the minutes, we're going to catch-up with that and make sure we share them with you.

Q5: Asks club to be transparent across all areas. Compliments the work of Rodgers in developing Matt O’Riley and mentions how good Arne Engels already looks.

Brendan Rodgers: Thanks. A lot of people were involved in Matt O'Riley's development. I was one of many. Arne is totally different player. I think if you watch them you see.. Matt is highly-gifted technical, and Arne will prove to be a real physical player, like we wanted, to help us especially at the highest level. I have no doubt that at 21 he still has a lot of development to go. Thanks for your kind words.

Peter Lawwell: Just to finish that question off, I hope you agree, we're really proud of the work that Alexis Dobbin and John Paul Taylor (SLOs) do for the Celtic fans. And as the previous gentleman said, the staff here are fantastic and they're caring and I hope you agree with that as well. So we're very proud of the work that she does as well. Thank you.

Q6: Next, a season-ticket holders says Rod Stewart should be opening his wallet and putting money into Celtic. Quips that he's contributed more money since his first game in 1964 and he's a pensioner.

Peter Lawwell: He does contribute an awful lot to the foundation, the work that he does in terms of for the foundation, and actually he donates an awful lot. So there's a lot more on behind the scenes. I'm not so sure he'd be interested in investing in a football club or Celtic, but in terms of his kindness and his generosity, it's second to none in terms of foundation, and we thank him for that.

Q7: Board asked if there's any plans to use huge cash balance to reduce the costs of season tickets? Lists figures to illustrate a reduction wouldn't necessarily cost the club a lot.

Peter Lawwell hands over to Christopher McKay (CFO): Thanks for your question. It's an area and a topic you wouldn't believe the amount of time you spend on each year thinking about it and your points well made and fully understood. Over the last couple of years we've increased the season ticket prices in line with headline inflation. If you look underneath that, the actual inflation that the business is subjected to is far, far greater than that.

So we actually did take the decision to not pass on a full cost increases and limit it to that number, and to that number mean areas like paying a hard-working staff more or utility bills, people probably appreciate from a domestic situation they are through the roof, out rates bill with Glasgow City Council almost doubled so we've absorbed a lot of that over the last couple of years.

But notwithstanding that we do recognise that as an issue for supporters. Again another example is our Champions League prices. We took the decision to freezes this year over last year so your points understood - it's not lost on us. We do spend a lot of time on it and we'll give all of this full consideration as we get into next season. Thank you.

Q8: The topic of stadium redevelopment is raised. Michael Nicholson stated previously it would cost £100m to refurb the main stand. Suggests a crowd-funder for season ticket holders to pledge a minimum of £100 on renewal forms. Raised funds could be ring-fenced towards the south stand project.

Christopher McKay: Again, it's an area we've thought long and hard about over a number of years now. Some parts of the stadium are approaching 100 years old. If we were in the English Premier League, it'd be a much easier decision to make.

We need to think of the long-term consequences of investing into infrastructure, which you need to do a minimum just to maintain the environment versus expansionary capital expenditure. And there's a lot of challenges around that, balancing football success as well, particularly if we were in the Europa League year on year. So that's a kind of thinking along the medium-to-long-term, but we'd never rule anything out in the future, we'll give that consideration. The debt markets are extremely difficult for football clubs as you can imagine, so any funding would need to be something different from that. But we'll take all that on board and feature it in our thinking going forward.

Q9: Member of the Celtic Trust. University of Glasgow has just released the results of a Celtic stakeholder survey. 2/3s of stakeholders would like to see a fan advisory board. Will Celtic commit to this?

Michael Nicholson: Thanks very much for sending me the survey first and foremost and thanks for your question. As we discussed earlier in the year, I suppose that engagement is a shared ambition for all the supporters in this room and beyond this room and the Fan Advisory Board is one aspect of that.

We're aware of Fan Advisory Boards, we're aware of the opportunities that they present, we're also aware of some of the challenges that other clubs such as in England have experienced through setting them up and we're looking to learn from all of that. We received your survey within the last 14 days, we've not had the chance to go through that in detail as yet, nor have we had the chance to go through our own survey which we're still receiving the information from as we speak.

So I think what I've offered, I think you may not have seen it because it was sent late last night, but I've asked one of our colleagues to set up a meeting in the next couple of weeks so we can discuss this as an opportunity with you. We'll also be proposing to discuss it with our fans forum and with our other supporters groups so that we can make, as we look at all the different options for supportive engagement, we can look at the right way forward for Celtic.

Q9: Had discussions now over two years. Seems small investors, season tickets holders etc would like it moved forward. We'd like to see some commitment, would that be possible in terms of how to move it forward?

Peter Lawwell: I don't think we can ignore it. I think this is a continually evolving subject. We had a chat during the week. The unfortunate thing is the survey didn't come out until last week. We didn't really have time to have a look at it and merge it with our own survey and get opinions from there.

But it's a subject that is ever-evolving. We recognise that. And we can't commit to forming it today, but what we commit to is start another consultation process maybe through a task force from the fans forum to take the thing forward. So that will be our commitment today.

Q10: Letter sent by Lajee Celtic, a Palestinian club set up by the Green Brigade. Didn’t receive a reply. Wrote again in February this year after stadium was destroyed, and didn't know how many supporters had survived. Also showed a pic of an Israeli soldier holding up Celtic flag as way of humiliating club. Lajee Celtic are touring Scotland next week and would like to present Celtic a gift. Are you willing to accept and meet as an act of kindness and hospitality to Palestinians of Lajee Celtic?

Michael Nicholson: I'm aware of the correspondence that you're referring to and I'm sure that everyone in this room has a lot of sympathy and empathy for what's going on in the Middle East at the moment. We're also very aware of the need for humanitarian intervention and support for all those involved. On top of that, we're also aware of how sensitive the issue is in this room and all around the world and we have to deal with that sensitively. I'm very happy to speak to you after the meeting to discuss that and to discuss the points you've raised.

Q10: They're just touring next week and they just want to meet with you., to give you a gift.

Peter Lawwell: Okay, thank you. Can you speak to one of our colleagues here who will put you in touch with Michael's PA and you can set up a chat this week or next week.

Q11: Joe McHugh: A couple of quick questions for our Chief Executive. Last year you were quite jovial when you were asked about an appointment of Mark Lawwell as the head of recruitment. After three disastrous transfer windows, when did you first get concerned about the performance of the chairman's son and at what point did you decide that you had to sack the chairman's son?

Peter Lawwell: This is a highly personal question. Joe writes a blog and Joe has got one healthy obsession with me and my son. That's the background. So I'm not going to give this question any credibility by answering it. But I will pass to Michael. If you keep that in mind, where Joe's coming from please.

Michael Nicholson: This is a meeting to discuss Celtic, this isn’t a meeting to discuss unwarranted personal attacks on any of our colleagues or former colleagues, or to discuss individuals. Last year I wasn't jovial, I was very serious about the decision that we'd made to bring Mark to the club. Those decisions we stand by. The collective that we worked with over the last period of time is, as I say, a collective responsibility. When Mark decided to leave to pursue other opportunities, we were sorry to see him go. Brendan and I worked very closely with Mark. And as I say, that's not jovial, that's a statement of fact.

Brendan Rodgers interjects: Mark's done a fantastic job here at Celtic. Every player that comes into here will not succeed. I think if you look at Mark's influence on bringing in Ange Postecoglou, it was huge. And if that was his only contribution to here, then he'd done a fantastic job. But he didn't. He was influenced from bringing in other players, like Alistiar Johnson and some of these other guys. All the players won't work out that come in here, and I know that as a manager and as a coach. My experience of working with Mark was second to none. He decided to go down a different route, and I respect that. But I also sit here in his defense because he's a massive Celtic supporter. Like Peter, from a Celtic family, who want nothing but the best for Celtic. Sometimes in that role as recruitment, like it is as a manager, you bring in a player, and it just might not quite work out for whatever reason. But finally, what I do know, Joe, is that his intention was for the very, very best for Celtic. And for that, that's why I will defend him.

Met with a round of applause in the room.

Q11: Michael, you were asked a question last season, last year, about John Beaton, and you gave a comical answer to that. I think it was a penalty to Rangers, was your reply. Our last domestic defeat was at Tynecastle in March. After that game, Brendan Rodgers described John Beaton as incompetent. Do you feel that John Beaton was incompetent in that match or was that a slur in the character of a top referee in Scottish football?

Michael Nicholson: I was being jovial about penalty Rangers last year but I think this is a question about refereeing ultimately and what we've been very clear about over the last number of years is that as with other aspects of the game we always want to drive standards as high as possible. I think if you look at what's happened in the last year or so around VAR for example, that has come to pass. The work that we've been doing behind the scenes over a number of years with the Scottish FA, with the SPFL, with the other clubs have led to improvements in the standards and the processes around VAR. There's a new VAR show where there's a transparency level of what's been seen before. There's a new process where clubs can question the decisions of referees and on-field decisions. And all of that is transparent. So as I say, that's how we will try to drive standards, not picking out any individuals for discussion at an AGM.

Q11: Have you seen any evidence beyond the squiggly line disallowing Kyogo's goal in the Glasgow Derby at the start of this season?

Michael Nicholson: I think, as I say, I think the focus is on what we can do to impact positive change, not to look at specific examples.

Q11: On youth development, last season, Montrose put Celtic out of the SFA Youth Cup. This season, Morton put Celtic out of the SFA Youth Cup. Are there any lessons being learned by that?

Michael Nicholson: So if I look at it as a generality, we're always looking to take forward standards at Celtic right across the board. And as we mentioned, the videos of Brendan spoke about it too., that includes from the academy all the way up. I think what you're referring to is two results involving a development team of Celtic, the B team, where...

Peter Lawwell: We get the point. Thanks for your questions. Always a pleasure.

Brendan Rodgers: Joe, I’m aware of the history of young players at the club and bringing in Paul Tisdale is a move that would help us fast-track kids. For me, that was my life before I was a manager, I was 15 years in youth development. If you look through my career and history as a coach, you'll see the number of young players I've put into first team level at 16 years of age through to 21s. So I would like to think I've got a half-decent idea around youth development. But it's also a big focus of mine because I know that the guys that we have here, Callum McGregor, James Forrest, Stephen Welsh and Anthony Ralston; these are the guys that create the culture and help create that. So there's nobody who wants to do that more than me and that's up to us in football, in strategy, to ensure that we get these players through. The points you're making absolutely about Montrose and Morton, yeah when you're playing against a big team that shouldn't happen but it does.

Sometimes it happens. I was Chelsea youth coach and we lost to Colchester in the Youth Cup and we'd spent a fortune. But a lot of the players that played for Chelsea went on and had really, really good careers and won the Champions League. So it happens. But I certainly get your point from a supporter that we want to see more youth players in the system and that's something that we'll hopefully look to do over the coming years.

Q11: Do you think that the St. Ninian's project and playing in the Lowlands League is advancing the development of young players? It looks a complete disaster.

Brendan Rodgers: It's something that we would need to have a really closer look at. And I know there's a lot of great work that goes on there, it did for the likes of Kieran and these guys coming through. But there's no doubt that youth development, not just here at Celtic, or in Scotland, but across the board, is a real challenge. There is a real challenge now, but especially at a Champions League club. But that's something that we want to make better.

Q11: Asks Michael Nicholson to answer the question about last academy player to start for Celtic.

Booed by fellow shareholders. Heckled. Told to sit down!

Peter Lawwell: Thanks, Joe. Always a pleasure.

Q12: Season ticket holder in Jock Stein stand. Asks about the Celtic End in the Jock Stein stand. Are the rumours true and are the club planning to build it and if so if there a guarantee fans will be offered similar seats with comparable view in another parts of the stadium?

Michael Nicholson: Thanks very much for your question. So the Celtic End initiative is not a club initiative, it's an initiative that's been pulled together by another group of supporters who have that as an ambition and as a goal. And I think the refer for example to the Yellow Wall [Borussia Dortmund] was an example of what positivity that can bring to the stadium. We're very aware of the fact that we're sold out in season tickets, it's about 52,000 season ticket holders who are within the stadium and most of them like the seats that they sit in.

But we did take on board the fact that there appears to be a demand for an increase in the number of standing seats, if you like, but rail seating within the stadium when we launched our survey over the summer. We're still working through the results of that, but when we launched the survey we asked two questions. One was, would you be interested in a safe standing section? The second question, crucially, was would you be willing to leave your seat and allow that to happen.

We're still looking at the results as they come in but those two questions are very closely connected. In addition to that we need to look at the practicalities of it as to where that might be located, what the engineering challenges would be, but we'll always make sure that we take into account the views of our supporters all around the stadium before we do anything.

It feels to me as if, instinctively, there does appear to be a demand. I was at Stanford Bridge on Wednesday night for Women's gaming, they've got safe standing behind both goals. It does appear to be an area of interest for a lot of supporters but we wouldn't do that without making sure we engage with supporters within the stadium and specifically within any area before that was developed. But in very short answer to the question, there is no specific proposal by the club to implement the Celtic end at the moment. Thank you.

Q13: Celtic FC Foundation praised for their great charitable work. Points out that thousands are being paid in fines to UEFA due to fan misbehaviour and asks what the board plan to do. Also says the treatment of fans away from home in Europe is disgraceful. References Lazio away last year. Finally, says it's impossible to get domestic away tickets while the same people who 'disgrace the club can'.

Massive round of applause, the biggest yet.

Peter Lawwell: Thanks for the question. Actually last year we were 90,000 euros in fines, this year we're 47,000 in fines so far and clearly it's unacceptable, very, very unfortunate. We have certainly in my time tried various routes to engage, convince and look at the ticket allocation but unfortunately to no avail. So in terms of what we're going to do or doing about it now, I'll hand over to Michael and he can update you how we're engaging and how we're trying to sort out.

Michael Nicholson: I think as Peter alluded to, it's a long-standing issue that we've been wrestling with for a long time. I think that it's not a Celtic-specific issue. You can see the behaviours around Scotland, around Europe. Those are the challenges that we're facing into. Specifically in relation to away tickets, taking that in isolation. The away ticket allocation scheme is something that's been, again, in place for a long period of time. We've consulted with the fans forum and groups to see if there's a way in which we can allocate tickets fairly reasonably that satisfies the demand that we have at the moment.

It's not perfect, the system we've got, and one of the main challenges we've got is that although, let's say we allocate 600 tickets for Tynecastle, the one thing that we do know is that those 600 tickets don't always end up in the hands of the supporters to whom we've been allocated, so that's one of the challenges that we face. In terms of the behaviours themselves, we've communicated and engaged with the supporters widely and specifically but there appears to be a gap between what we're communicating in relation for example in relation to pyrotechnics and the safety aspects around them.

I mean the fines worry us and concern us and the money could be used better but ultimately what concerns us most is safety of the supporters around that area and the impact that it might have on the game. We've seen recently games in Scotland where games have been delayed, players have been on the pitch waiting for the game to start, which I'm sure Brendan can address in relation to the performance issues. So it's a big challenge and what's helpful is to have the feeling of the room here, that it's a challenge that they want to address with us and it's one we'll continue to try to address.

Q14: Member of Liverpool CSC. Once again, raises redevelopment of main stand. Questions if the board truly understand that if the capacity was increased, the season ticket waiting list would instantly sell out.

Peter Lawwell: I think we covered that earlier, but again, if you could make yourself known to one of your colleagues, we could have a chat about that after.

Q15: Season ticket holder from England. The matchday experience is great but when the game’s over it ends. Any discussions with Glasgow City Council regarding traffic issues at Celtic Park?

Peter Lawwell: Thanks for the question. You're not the only one who's asked that question privately and are feeling really, really frustrated at the way the way out of Celtic Park. We have done some work on it, I'll ask Michael to...

Michael Nicholson: Thank you for answering the question. As Peter said it's something that we've been working on for a long period of time. We've sought to engage with the council and the police and other authorities involved in transport around the stadium. Specifically the cycle lanes were brought into play, I think originally, under some temporary legislation, around the time of Covid, and have remained there ever since. It certainly wasn't something that we were formally consulted on and if we had been we'd have a raise out significant concerns as we did for example when the council proposed some parking restrictions which have had the effect of making parking even worse around the stadium and potentially making transport even worse.

Whether we can and where we're able to we will always represent the views of the supporters to the council. We're, at the moment, in the early stages, the council have thought it a good idea to bring back the parking proposals near Celtic Park and we're at the moment working with them to try to dissuade them from doing so. So feedback from you and from other supporters will be a major part of that moving forward. Maybe I'm a cynic, but the fact that the cycle lanes came in around the time that they were bidding for a Cycle Championship across the road, I'm not sure what the coincidence is or not.

Q16: Thanks Elena Sadiku for her work with the women’s team. Questions strategic direction of the women's team and the board's financial backing to continue development.

Christopher McKay: Listen, I echo absolutely everything you say. Elena's done a fantastic job. The women's team went professional in 2020 for the first time, which was unfortunate during Covid, so we lost much of that year. So the first full year of normal operations was in 2021. Since then, we've increased investment every year. We've won every domestic title. We've got into the Champions League for the first time. So I think we have made real, demonstrable progress, but we want to do more. Barrowfield is a fantastic base and the right environment for the women's team to grow and develop. But I assure you it's an area of focus that does feature in our strategic plan and we want to take that side of the club forward. Thank you.