Where is Michael Nicholson?

One of the worst aspects of the last week at Celtic has been the invisibility of certain figures. Foremost amongst them is the CEO.

In dictatorships and oppressive regimes the leader becomes the centre of gravity.

Everything flows from him. All authority radiates outward as though from a gamma ray burst.

In those systems the death or incapacity of the leader is often concealed for long periods. The regime carries on regardless while people inside the system try to stabilise things and find a new figurehead. Sometimes a quiet transition follows. Sometimes a bloody power struggle erupts.

Watching Celtic right now, it is tempting to wonder whether something similar has happened to Michael Nicholson.

Has he been deposed? Replaced? Incapacitated?

For all we know the man could have fallen off the face of the earth. He could have moved to a remote cabin in the mountains with no internet access. He could have been abducted by aliens.

The strange thing is that if any of that had happened, Celtic would function exactly as it does now.

The chief executive of one of Scotland’s largest institutions has become such an invisible presence that his complete absence might go entirely unnoticed.

During normal times that invisibility is strange.

During a crisis, or in the midst of a media firestorm, it becomes absurd.

This is the moment when a chief executive is supposed to appear. The steady hand on the tiller. The person who communicates, who leads, who sets the tone for the organisation. Instead we get silence.

The reality is that Celtic would probably continue to operate perfectly well without its current executive leadership. Every department has a head. Those people would continue doing their jobs tomorrow if the CEO vanished completely.

Companies do not collapse overnight because a figurehead disappears. Systems keep functioning. Institutions keep moving.

The real question is whether the figurehead ever mattered in the first place.

That brings to mind another image.

In the film Weekend at Bernie’s the central character is literally a dead man.

The entire plot revolves around people pretending he is still alive.

At times it feels as though Celtic is running its own version of that film.

Michael Nicholson has never appeared to be an all-powerful leader. Yet the chief executive of a club the size of Celtic is supposed to wield real authority. That role should carry weight and visibility.

Nicholson has always seemed strangely insubstantial for the job.

So insubstantial, in fact, that you wonder whether anyone would notice the difference if we simply replaced him with a cardboard cut-out.

You can order one online for under £100.

Sit it in the chair at the AGM. Put it in the office. Leave it there indefinitely.

The club would receive roughly the same level of leadership, communication and engagement that it currently gets from the man earning close to a million pounds a year.

For a club that prides itself on financial prudence, that seems like a remarkable waste of money.

A £100 cardboard cut-out versus a £1 million annual salary.

The output appears remarkably similar.

The strangest part of all this is that when the club needs a public voice it turns not to the chief executive but to Brian Wilson. The club pushes an ageing board member in front of the cameras to speak on issues that fall squarely within the CEO’s responsibilities.

Meanwhile the actual CEO remains invisible.

Peter Lawwell was many things, and I criticised him often when he ran this club. He stayed in the job far too long and treated Celtic as something close to a personal fiefdom.

Yet one thing cannot be denied.

Lawwell led from the front.

Even when he was dodging difficult questions he understood the basic responsibility of leadership.

The club’s position was communicated.

Michael Nicholson has never demonstrated that instinct.

Lawwell chose Nicholson as his successor, initially on a temporary basis. Celtic had the opportunity at that moment to recruit a serious executive figure, someone capable of leading a major institution.

Instead we got this.

A chief executive who appears only rarely, speaks even less, and vanishes entirely when the club is under pressure.

If Celtic looks weak at times it is because leadership matters. Right now the leadership of this club appears to be missing.

Nicholson may well be sitting in his office at Celtic Park right now. Or he could be scuba diving off the coast of Bermuda. Behind his office door, there may be a corpse tied to the chair with a piece of string. Or a cardboard cutout.

The truth is that none of us would know the difference.

That is the problem. When a club is facing a crisis you look for leadership somewhere. When the chief executive is earning close to £1 million a year, that is the natural place to look. So the obvious question remains.

Where is the value? What is Michael Nicholson for? Where is Michael Nicholson?

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