This video has appeared on my feed again, and with the Celtic AGM expected in November, I watched Ross Desmond’s speech once more. It has made me angrier than I was the first time. After everything that has happened over the past year, the message still sounds like an establishment insider telling the people who built Celtic to know their place.

Ross said he was speaking for himself and his father, Dermot Desmond. That makes the speech impossible to separate from the family’s influence at Celtic. Ross was invited onto the AGM platform to address shareholders, despite not being a director elected by them. He chose to use that platform to criticise supporters who were demanding answers. How dare he lecture the fans as if they are the problem?

The fans are Celtic

The Desmonds do not own Celtic’s identity. The fans do.

It is supporters who buy the tickets, travel home and away, fill the stands, purchase the shirts and merchandise, and pass the club down through generations. They created the atmosphere and built the reputation that Celtic trades on around the world. Celtic would be nothing without them. It would not be the club it is today without the people who have carried it through triumph, hardship and change.

Celtic’s charitable roots belong to its history. Its living heartbeat is the support. The Desmonds may have wealth and influence, but that does not make them the authors of Celtic’s identity. The fans are the club. They have every right to challenge those who make decisions in its name.

A lecture instead of answers

Ross began by dismissing criticism as “nonsense”. He then warned about people whose only purpose, in his telling, was to be “anti-establishment”. That is an astonishing accusation to aim at Celtic supporters. The club’s own history grew from ordinary people organising to help their community. Treating every challenge to authority as an attack on Celtic turns the club’s roots upside down.

Supporters have raised serious questions about communication, recruitment, ambition and the direction of the club. Ross could have addressed those concerns one by one. Instead, he painted critics as destructive and irrational. That does not answer a single question. It tells fans that their concerns will be heard only if they are delivered in a way the powerful find comfortable.

He acknowledged, “we can communicate better”. Then came the accusation that sections of the support were “bullies”. The contradiction is brutal. You cannot promise better communication while using language that casts dissenters as villains. That is not bridge-building. It is a rebuke dressed up as an appeal for unity.

Influence brings responsibility

Ross defended financial caution and spoke about protecting Celtic’s future. Prudence matters. But it cannot be used as a shield against every question about whether the club has shown enough ambition or explained its decisions properly. A strong balance sheet does not entitle anyone to dismiss the supporters who fund the matchday experience and give Celtic its standing.

The shareholders in that room had every right to voice their anger. The meeting became noisy and was eventually closed before questions and resolutions could be dealt with. Reducing that day to a story about disruptive fans ignores the deeper failure: the people in charge had not earned the trust of the people in the room.

The rift remains. The Celtic Trust is seeking an apology for Ross’s speech and action on long-term planning. Celtic has since said it will end engagement with the Celtic Fans Collective. The Green Brigade suspension was lifted in April after months away from Celtic Park; the group has now announced a boycott of remaining home European and cup matches. These are not signs of a relationship repaired by one speech.

Dermot Desmond cannot escape scrutiny by having his son deliver the message. If Ross speaks for his father, then both should answer for what was said and for the gulf it widened. Money and influence do not make anyone Celtic. The supporters do.

The AGM should be a place for answers, not a stage for telling fans they are the problem. Ross Desmond turned on the people who built Celtic’s reputation. The Desmonds should remember this: the club belongs to its supporters, and no family is bigger than Celtic.