THE accusation made last week that Peter Lawwell “runs Scottish football” was not a particularly new or surprising one. It is on a par with observing that President Trump isn’t the most eloquent of public speakers or that Novak Djokovic is enduring something of a slump. It hardly falls into the category of breaking news.

What was different this time, though, was that the claim about the extent of the Celtic chief executive’s authority came not from cynical supporters of rival clubs but from someone who not so long ago was rubbing shoulders with Lawwell around the boardroom table.

Stewart Gilmour was until last summer the chairman of St Mirren. It was a role that gave him first-hand exposure to the full range of Lawwell’s persuasive powers, like the time Gilmour had his arm twisted and allowed Celtic to rebrand the St Mirren club shop in green and white for a series of summer friendlies.

Gilmour would never have criticised Lawwell on the record while in office for fear of retribution but is evidently enjoying the freedom that comes with not being attached to a club. “No longer constrained by the SFA/SPFL secret police following and waiting to fine for adverse statements,” reads his Twitter blurb, as if Scottish football’s equivalent of the Stasi had previously been bugging his phone and lurking in the cyber bushes trying to catch him out.

Freed from the shackles of repression, Gilmour took to national radio in midweek to liberally offer his opinions on all he found wrong with the game. There is a school of thought that when you are at least partly responsible for a club falling like a stone from the Premiership to the brink of League One in less than two years you would keep more of a low profile, but Gilmour is clearly not one who subscribes to it.

Instead, he offered his view that Lawwell was “pulling the strings” in Scottish football and had “too much power on other clubs”. It was meant as a criticism of the shadow Celtic have apparently been allowed to cast over the rest of Scottish football. But the obvious response would be this: who out there is better qualified to try to drag our game forward?

It is undoubtedly not healthy for Scottish football in a competitive sense for one club to enjoy such a monopoly but the current state of affairs is neither Celtic’s fault nor problem. They have benefited more than most from Rangers’ fall from grace and now have almost unfettered access to the Champions League on an annual basis and the riches that come with that. They also enjoy the financial largesse of Dermot Desmond, the club’s major shareholder, who has helped bring manager Brendan Rodgers and a number of well-remunerated players to Celtic this season.

Running their affairs on a day-to-day basis for the past 13 years, however, has been Lawwell. Celtic in the past had often been pilloried for a refusal to push the boat out on transfers - and previous managers Neil Lennon and Ronny Deila must look enviously at Rodgers’ budget – but that prudence has served them well in the long run. Celtic have never been in ruder financial health and most of the credit for that must go to Lawwell.

He will always do what is in Celtic’s best interests in the first instance – as every chief executive and chairman/chairwoman in the land must do – but his enhanced profile does Scottish football no harm either. Being a member of the European Club Association’s executive board puts him in regular contact with some of the biggest names in the game. In a recent interview in the Herald, Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu spoke in such gushing terms about Lawwell and the respect he had for his Scottish counterpart – “he is one of the best sports leaders in European football” – that even Lawwell must have found himself blushing upon reading it.

He has also held various posts among our domestic hierarchy; a seat on the SFA’s professional game board, a switch to the main SFA board, and, since last summer, a place on the SPFL board. Again, the feeling among some is that it allows him to wield too much power and influence. Given his status as the chief executive of the biggest club in the country, there is a counter argument that he has earned the right to do so.

Lawwell’s prominence is perhaps all the more noticeable due to the absence of a corresponding Rangers figure as had previously been the case when Martin Bain served as the Ibrox chief executive. With current chairman Dave King in South Africa and rarely seen, managing director Stewart Robertson considered running for an SPFL board position last summer before bowing out. That lack of visible leadership remains a problem for Rangers.

Hearts’ Ann Budge and Hibs’ Leeann Dempster were elected to that board and, while both were commendable additions, neither in their current role presides over the sort of sprawling commercial empire overseen by Lawwell. He has not always been an entirely popular figure – even among many of the Celtic support – but if he is indeed “running our game” as has been suggested, then Scottish football can surely only benefit.