Fergus McCann | Celtic Takeover | Celtic Board
Quotes – By McCann
“I want people to judge me on what we have achieved after five years. I will go back to my home in Bermuda, play some golf and live a healthier life.”
Fergus McCann, Aug 1995 (The Herald)
“As Celtic fans, we can be proud of ourselves and what we have achieved in our life, because what we have achieved has been achieved on our own merits. We haven’t had to join any secret organisation in life to get where we are today, and that’s important to you.”
Fergus McCann (as transcribed by Matt McGlone of Celts for Change group at The Hospitality Inn in Glasgow on 29 Nov 1993)
“You don’t have to be a Philadelphia lawyer or a Chartered Account to read a balance sheet which is as bad as Celtic’s right now.”
Fergus McCann in an interview prior to the Takeover,1994
“I can’t get hung upon this nine-in-a-row thing. We have a stadium to build and a long-term plan we need to stick to. This club is going to be around for the next 100 years and I’m not going to put that at risk just to stop Rangers reaching 10.”
Fergus McCann (as retold by David Low in 2018)
Brian Dempsey: “I said: ‘This is not going to work – you can’t come in here and do everything your own way.’
Fergus McCann: ‘I’m going to blow my brains out, and when I do that I want to make sure I go out with the right money.’
Recalled by Brian Dempsey in a conversation; Fergus McCann, this unique, controversial, little character, did just as he said he would.
“Being a Celtic supporter is not always easy, but it is always worthwhile.”
Fergus McCann (Spring 1997)
“When we score a sublime goal I’m as happy as anyone but you don’t get to enjoy a game. You can’t possibly. The game’s too important to enjoy.”
Fergus McCann (1996)
“That charity fund, inside and outside Scotland is a very important identity of Celtic Football Club.”
Fergus McCann
“The club was formed for charitable purposes. It is very important to remember that.”
Fergus McCann
“Celtic is a community institution the supporters are entitled to be proud of.”
Fergus McCann
“We need a national stadium like we need a national supermarket”
Fergus McCann
“Money doesn’t guarantee success, but no money guarantees no success!”
Fergus McCann (as quoted by David Low in an interview with Graham Spiers)
“Celtic fans should look forward to my departure as we already have in place a top management team to take the Club forward. I have not dedicated five years of my life to hand the Club over to the wrong people. The Club is on an upward curve. Our target is to have a dominant position in Scottish football followed by being a recognised force on the European scene once again. The quality of people, a first class stadium, substantial finances and a faithful supporter base is the foundation on which future success will be built”.
Fergus McCann 5/12/1997
“Today is my last AGM as Celtic Chairman as I will be leaving the Club as planned before the end of the season. The time has passed very quickly since 4th March 1994, when the Club had reached an all time low with no on-field success, a dilapidated stadium, substantial debt and no money available for new players.
“Over the four years we have made massive progress: winning the League Championship (97/98); building the largest club stadium in the UK (60,000 seats); having the largest support (52,000 season book holders) of any club in Britain. This has been achieved by everyone who cares about Celtic working together towards a shared vision of football success and pride in a club which is part of our culture, open to all and a responsible member of the community working to help others where it can.
“We are now working hard to ensure that the progress that has been made can be sustained into the future. We have begun the search for a new Chairman and a new Chief Executive and we will ensure that we identify the right people to lead Celtic forward into the new millennium once again as a major force in Europe.
“As I have indicated some time ago, I intend to divest my shareholding when I leave the Club. In doing so, my overriding principle is that I shall do what I believe is best for the future of Celtic. I have also indicated my intention that my shareholding will be made available to be held broadly amongst the supporters and existing shareholders of the Club. I believe that this should produce the best structure of ownership for the Club and the Company.”
Fergus McCann 14/09/1998
In response to the current market speculation concerning a proposed takeover bid for Celtic plc, a consortium including Kenny Dalglish and Jim Kerr that is considering a number of options regarding Celtic plc, today announced that the consortium has requested a meeting with the majority shareholder of Celtic plc, which may or may not lead to an offer for his shares and/or an offer for the entire issued share capital of the Company. As of today, no meeting has taken place. The valuation being placed upon Celtic plc by the consortium is substantially below the current market price of Celtic plc
Fergus McCann 10/11/1998
“I am pleased to announce the details of the sale of 14,400,000 of my shares in Celtic that enables existing shareholders and season book holders to increase substantially their ownership of their Club.
“I am satisfied with the progress the Club has made over the last five years.
I now look forward to once again being a full-time supporter and hopefully watching the team and Club progress to realise its true potential, which I believe is considerable.”
Fergus McCann 20/09/1999
“You can’t live on the hope of a television contract and play in a stadium with nobody there.”
Fergus McCann
Shareholder: “I tell you that 90% of the people here are not interested in business. They are interested only in the playing side of things.”
Fergus McCann: “I tell you that without the business, there would be no club – and NO team.”
Celtic AGM (1997)
“I don’t want to give them one thin dime!”
Fergus McCann correctly & stubbornly states his opposition to compensate the deposed board members after the 1994 takeover.
“What was it Nixon said? You guys won’t have me to kick around anymore.”
Fergus McCann on the media as heneared the end of his time at Celtic, 1999
“You pledge your £100,000, get yourself a mobile phone and you’re off, you’re a football agent.”
Fergus McCann
“You cannot change the minds of the mindless. But that doesn’t mean you just admit that’s the way we have to live.”
Fergus McCann
“Things can go up and things can go down – but Celtic, I hope, can go on forever.”
Fergus McCann
“The stadium had to be rebuilt and people were saying why don’t you just buy the players Fergus? We’ll stand in the mud. But the stadium was a tool. We had to have a season-ticket base. Jack McGinn [board member] was saying, “We don’t want season-ticket holders, they are nothing but trouble.” Well, I just couldn’t live with that marketing philosophy at all.The answer is that you have got to fill the park. The average crowd was 28,000 and we built a 60,000- seat stadium. How smart was that? Well, it was the right thing to do.”
Fergus McCann highlights Jack McGinn’s comment, and illustrates why the old board members’ mentality and why they weren’t good enough to manage the club.
“I’m just a footnote in the grand scheme of things. Brother Walfrid was the visionary who started things and his is a name that should stay in people’s minds.”
Fergus McCann (2011)
“It would’ve cost less, and left the previous owners with nothing, to go into liquidation. But it would also be humiliating for Celtic. So we paid all the bills. Celtic means the same to me as it does to other fans. I identify with the club and wish to be proud of it.”
Fergus McCann (2013)
“Celtic supporters want to be proud of their Club. That’s all they want. It is what they deserve.”
Fergus McCann (2014)
“[Celtic] are not entirely surrounded by friends. The Scottish environment is such that there has been some prejudice against immigrants. Celtic is seen as having a big Catholic population among its support. Celtic supporters understand that Celtic is a symbol of their dealing with that by not being second to anyone.”
Fergus McCann (2016)
Quotes – On McCann 
“Fergus McCann is the father of the modern day Celtic!”
Andrew H Smith (ex-Celtic View editor, and then journalist)
“The most unfairly maligned figure in the entire history of the Scottish game . . . the most inscrutable man I have ever met, an eccentric whom I must have spent more time with than any other Scottish journalist.’
Andrew H Smith, Journalist in Scotland on Sunday (2004)
“Whatever you say about Fergus McCann, if this [Celtic Park] is the legacy, then I am absolutely delighted with it.”
Martin O’Neill
“Fergus was the most unjustly maligned man in the history of the game, when you consider that he took the club from bankruptcy into the mainstream and built that stadium along the way.”
Hugh Adam (ex-Rangers Director 2002)
“McCann built a stadium. Oh, what a great great thing. Ceaucescu built pretty amazing stadiums, so did Mussolini. I’m in it for the team. It’s like building La Scala and having a run of the mill pub-singer perform.”
Jim Kerr, May 1999 (shows that not all were respectful of McCann’s efforts)
“Fergus McCann’s arrival in Scotland was to the detriment of the well-being of Scottish Football… There are already too many foreigners ruining our game.”
Jim Farry in an interview with Scotland On Sunday newspaper (Jan 1997)
“While other clubs appeared to be able to identify a player they wanted to buy and then just go ahead and buy him, with Celtic it seemed that the process would take roughly the same time as the gestation of an elephant. It seemed that youngish players who are linked with Celtic had become veterans, completed their careers and moved into pub management before Magoo [Fergus McCann] was satisfied enough with the small print to authorise the expenditure.”
Alastair McSporran, The Absolute Game Fanzine – 1997
“He saw me as no different from the groundsman or the head chef.”
Former Celtic manager Lou Macari on Fergus McCann (2004)
“Some people I know say he’s a very nice man once you get to know him. Everyone is entitled to their opinion I suppose.”
Mark Viduka on Fergus McCann 1999
“It seemed to me Fergus had no respect for football people, suggesting they were too emotional and of low IQ.”
Tommy Burns (1997)
“I probably did 15 or 20 years as a manager in those three years.”
Tommy Burns on his three years as Celtic manager under Fergus McCann
“Mr McCann wasn’t a football person. He didn’t understand the psychology of the game. He didn’t like the emotion, the passion and the competitiveness.”
Tommy Burns summarising his views on Fergus McCann in the stand at the Lou Macari court case (1997)
‘He must recognise the rules of the game were not established to be so blatantly disregarded by a man who knows virtually nothing of the structure of Scottish football.’
Alan Davidson (Evening Times journalist) on Fergus McCann prior to the successful outcome for Fergus McCann v Farry, an example of the mounting criticism against him, but Fergus McCann was proved right.
“As the senior players argued their case McCann batted it back like an Andy Murray forearm. He knew the going rate and it wasn’t what they were paying at Ibrox. Voices were raised and Fergus scuttled off like a squirrel up a tree – the wee man didn’t like confrontation and didn’t need it either. McCann would sit in his office like a general in the army. There was no need to get his hands dirty on these trivial matters with the playing department. He shuffled all the pieces around until he had Celtic heading in the direction he had promised five years earlier, nothing more nothing less. McCann showed steel and integrity as he used his foresight and common sense to steer Celtic through turbulent times.That’s something Rangers and their board need to learn fast.”
Craig Burley on McCann (2013)
“Can I just say, in fairness to Fergus McCann, that in 1994 none of these people were available to help Celtic when they were 24 hours from foreclosure at the bank. Only one man came forward and put forward his personal wealth to save the club and, let there be no doubt about it, there would be no Celtic today were it not for Fergus McCann. And if he walks away, George [Galloway], with a handsome profit then he has earned ‘every thin dime’. ”
Hugh Keevins in a panel talk with Kirsty Wark on Fergus McCann’s upcoming departure from Celtic (journalist, 1999),
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/19990508173531/http://www.presence.co.uk:80/soccer/bhoys-talk/wordswithwark.html
“My initial impression of Fergus was that he was a nasty wee chap, and I think I had a good reason.”
Andy Walker (ex-Celt 1999)
“With the previous person here [Fergus McCann] I might as well have spoken to a brick wall.”
Alan Stubbs
“Fergus [McCann] is the only person I’ve ever known who’s made money out of football.”
Former Rangers chairman David Murray, 2004
“Celtic supporters are waiting to see if McCann can do a David Murray at Celtic Park. Since his arrival at Ibrox, the flamboyant Rangers chairman has lead his club back into the promised land of European football by ruling the roost with an iron fist and combining it with an astute business acumen and making the right footballing appointments.”
Tom English, June 19, 1994
“Every hoopster should genuflect before this great wee man. The Scottish establishment would have let your team die….he saved it….your history….and your heritage.”
Jim Spence (Scottish football journalist, 2019)
