Many people in Scotland will be unaware that Celtic FC majority shareholder Dermot Desmond was in an Irish court again in the last month challenging public court tribunal findings critical of his business dealings.
His action was “halted”
So we have a strange situation where Mr Desmond has felt aggrieved at an allegation that he has misinterpreted.
He clearly doesn’t like being criticised.
Now whether his legal advice was that the tribunal had implied he was complicit in fraud, or that he knew there was no such allegation, but simply wished to send out a message that he cannot be criticised is up for debate.
As it stands, criticism from the Moriarty Tribunal, and from another public review in to his affairs (The Glackin Report) will stand.
Not many in Scotland will have heard of any of this.
The Scottish Media, who were so quick to delve in to every transaction of Rangers owner Craig Whyte, have been curiously silent.
While Desmond is robust in defending himself in the Irish Press, with rare interviews re-iterating that he does pay tax in the Republic, the very fact there are allegations to the contrary in the Irish Press, and online media world at least points to a far more open media than Scotland is graced with.
Such questions are apparently not allowed in Scotland.
They also don’t seem to appear in any Independent News Media titles, such as the Irish Independent, or the Belfast Telegraph.
That could perhaps be explained by the fact that Desmond has a minor shareholding in the group.
Don’t bet on these papers running any of this stuff, at least not in BetDaq, as Desmond owns that too
So what exactly are all these public reviews and tribunals referencing Desmond?
The first of these reviews is the Glackin report., whish was subsequently used in the Moriarty Tribunal
There are a lot of references to Desmond here, and the whole report is worth reading.
Essentially, the report alleged that a company called United Property Holdings , whose majority shareholder was Desmond, acquired a site in Dublin for £4M , and hived it off to two offshore firms called Chestvale and Hoddle, who subsequently sold the site to telecom Eireinn for a profit of £5.3M, with UPH profiting to the tune of £2.3M.
The public interest in this derived from the fact that it appeared a starting block to major riches for Desmond, and some of his fellow defendants. The major news came from an an alleged conflict of interests, whereby the chairman of Telecom Eireinn owned 10% of UPH.
The report suggested collusion of the UPH shareholders to line their own pockets at the expense of part state owned telecom Eireinn. Desmond strongly denies the findings, and has continued to challenge them to this day.
As of now, these findings have not been retracted.
No matter how this plays out, one thing is certain. It is very unlikely that the Scottish Media will cover this, or task any investigative reporters with delving in to every single bank account he has, every transaction any of his businesses undertake, or who all of his business associates are, and what their dealings are.
Nor will they query open boasts from sources close to Celtic Park that Desmond payed the salary of both Roy Keane and Robbie Keane during their times with Celtic.. Were there two contracts for the players? Were they declared?
The most famous of the public reviews referencing Desmond was the Moriarty Tribunal, which can be found here:
The full report runs to almost 2,400 pages, but the specific references to Desmond include both the Glackin allegations, and newer revelations of several payments from Desmond to former Irish Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The payments were defended as “loans” by Desmond, but the Tribunal disagreed.
Again, this has had NO coverage in the Scottish media at all. There have been no calls for investigations, no “neutral” bloggers tracking every move, and certainly no editors wanting to touch it with a bargepole.
These public reports in to Desmond’s business affairs are not isolated incidents either.
Two further reports cast a critical eye over Desmond’s business dealings, and they too have not featured on Scotland’s front pages
The Mahon and Flood reports also make interesting reading.
These will be covered in Part 2 of this Desmond overview
Bill
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