The Celtic CEO is finally under scrutiny. It’s time he was put under pressure as well.

Michael Nicholson is getting a little bit of heat in the press today, and he absolutely deserves it. It’s about time some attention was focused on this guy.

A lot of people focus on Lawwell, which is fair up to a point. Others look at Chris McKay. Still more are discussing Paul Tisdale.

And yet Nicholson seems to have just walked between the raindrops without getting wet. But he’s the CEO, and the CEO of a major football club like Celtic should not get to play the invisible man indefinitely.

There are plenty who think he’s just not suited to talking to the media.

If that’s the case, then I’d say he’s just not suited to being CEO and should have stayed a backroom pen-pusher, because the job of CEO does involve speaking to the press. It does involve, at times, being the public face of the club. I can’t think of another CEO anywhere who has spent as little time engaging with the press as this guy—because this guy has spent no time engaging with them at all.

If anyone at Celtic is under the illusion that this is viewed by fans as some show of contempt for the media—and therefore something we’re all right with—they had better think again. Because it’s viewed exactly as it should be: as an expression of contempt for the fans themselves, for the club’s supporters, for its paying customers.

Sitting in front of the media is one of the job’s responsibilities. Articulating a vision to the fans that they can believe in is one of the job’s responsibilities. And this guy has been ducking those responsibilities for far too long.

I thought from the outset that this was a terrible appointment. When Lawwell was CEO, Nicholson was his right-hand man—a guy of such low profile that he could sit in a room, and you might not even remember he was there.

An internal appointment for a club this size? I thought it was shocking. I thought it was small-time ambition yet again. Another yes-man for whoever it is that really runs Celtic. Someone who would come in, toe the line, and not rock the boat too much. A pure placeman, in short. Not there to run the show, but to do the bidding of somebody else. People have long suspected that the “somebody else” in question is the guy who currently inhabits the chairman’s seat.

The only way Nicholson could have settled those concerns early—the only way he could have alleviated them instead of amplifying them—was to sit down with the media and do a full and frank interview. Talk about how he came to get the job, what his plans were in the role, and what changes we could expect under his stewardship as opposed to those who came before.

Most in the media would have conveniently skipped over the fact that the man he replaced wasn’t Lawwell at all, but Dominic McKay—whose own departure from the CEO role was shocking, disturbing, and remains unexplained.

But Nicholson could have largely avoided questions about that. What’s not tenable is avoiding questioning altogether. If he thinks he can skate through the rest of his tenure as CEO without answering a single question in a public forum, he’s kidding himself.

I return again to the subject of the AGM, where my podcast colleague Joe McHugh got up to ask a question of Michael Nicholson—only for Lawwell himself to interject. For someone who’s not supposed to have a role or any responsibilities at the club, I found that to be a profoundly disturbing moment. I also found it telling that Nicholson sat there in silence as Lawwell went on his rant.

I believe that Lawwell has no actual hands-on role at Celtic like I believe in trolls under bridges. He’s pushed this line himself. He’s had other people push it on his behalf. There are people in the media who have trotted it out almost daily. And in my personal opinion, it stretches credulity until you can hear the elastic snap. And if it turns out that he doesn’t fulfil any function other than to open and close meetings, then I wonder what good he’s doing around the place.

Like it or not, the perception remains that Peter Lawwell’s shadow looms over everything Nicholson does. Many believe that one of the reasons Nicholson avoids the media is that he’s not capable of doing it without instructions from his daddy. The whole thing is absurd. I have no problem with the manager being the face of the football operation, but the idea that the CEO of the club has no presence at all? That’s ridiculous. Especially when it’s an established fact that much of the negotiations on transfer fees and everything else are done by the CEO.

Even at Ibrox, where dysfunction is elevated to staggering heights, the chief executive is still willing to appear in front of the media and tell them where the manager stands in terms of backing. He did that in his first month in the job.

Look at last year’s grovelling apology for the January 2024 transfer fiasco—it was buried in the company accounts and delivered by the chairman. The man with no day-to-day role in things. Not the CEO. So why was it the chairman who addressed that, while the CEO said nothing? That raises more questions than it ever hopes to answer.

And Nicholson already has plenty to answer for. Because if we presume that Daddy Lawwell had no role in hiring Lawwell Junior, then the responsibility for that disastrous appointment falls entirely on the CEO. And that, as we all know, wasn’t just a failure—it was a catastrophic failure. One that stank then, and still stinks now, of cronyism rather than any kind of merit-based decision.

That little escapade cost us an entire summer. It could have cost us the league title and a shot at that Champions League pot of gold. The January window failure last year—which the chairman apologised for—also falls on the CEO’s shoulders. Unless, of course, we’re to believe that he doesn’t actually run things at all. And that, too, is something he owes us an explanation for.

Three out of four transfer windows under Rodgers have failed the manager, all four of them with Nicholson at the helm.

In fact, I might even argue that all four of Rodgers’ transfer windows have been failures to some extent. Even last summer’s window—regarded by some as a success—left key positions unfilled. Players were brought in at the last minute, giving them no time to bed in before they were thrown into games.

A lot of people don’t get animated about that, but the manager does—because he knows it’s damaging, and in any case, it’s just plain stupid and bad planning.

There are numerous outstanding issues at our club.

The future of the stadium is up for grabs, and they refuse to engage with fans about what the plans are. And it’s not as if those plans don’t directly affect large numbers of supporters—of course they do. Where are we on a new contract for Rodgers? Nobody knows, because nobody at Celtic talks about these things.

And no one at Celtic has expressed any interest in renewing his deal. No sensible board would let a manager of his calibre enter the final year of his contract without at least sitting down for a discussion about his future.

There are also issues involving the fans—Pyro, supporter engagement, and more—which the board owes it to the supporters to discuss. Or at the very least, they should be telling us what their plans are. And again, all we get is radio silence.

If people accept the idea that Lawwell isn’t involved in the club’s day-to-day operations, then that means the buck stops with the CEO. And yet he’s been given a free ride for far too long. It’s time that changed.

So I think every blog should be turning up the heat on this guy. He needs to get in front of a camera—not Celtic’s in-house media, but the actual press. The ones who will put him under a bit of pressure. The ones who will ask the tough questions. Maybe then we’ll get some of the answers we’re still waiting for.

Because it is unconscionable for this guy to still be hiding. He is the chief executive of a major football club, a major institution. It’s time he got out of the cupboard, instead of crouching there like a scared little girl.

If he has a vision for the club, let’s hear it. If he doesn’t have a vision for the club, then he’s in the wrong job—and he should pack up his pencils and follow Lawwell Junior out the door. Because frankly, after this long in the job, it’s just not good enough.

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