Celtic is creating a new executive role. That raises more questions about the CEO.

There is a point in every organisation where progress ends and starts looking like clutter. It does not happen overnight. Instead, it creeps in gradually. A new role here. A new department there. A title added. A responsibility shifted. Each change, taken on its own, feels logical. Sensible, even. Modern. Professional.

But taken together, something else begins to emerge.

Complexity without clarity. Indeed, Celtic may be approaching that point.

The club is set to appoint Paul Mazoyer as Head of Business Operations. On paper, it is exactly the kind of move you would expect from a modern football club. A senior figure brought in from outside the game. A focus on supporter experience. Retail operations, ticketing, hospitality, stadium services. In other words, the areas where the club interacts directly with its fans and generates a significant portion of its revenue.

It sounds progressive. It sounds necessary. And in isolation, it probably is.

Because in a well-structured organisation, the division of responsibilities is clear. The Chief Executive sets the direction. The Chief Financial Officer controls the numbers. The Head of Operations delivers the day-to-day performance.

Each role has a purpose. Each role fits into a coherent whole.

That is how it is supposed to work.

But football clubs do not exist in theory. They exist in practice. And in practice, structures only matter if the people within them are clearly fulfilling their roles. That is where the questions begin.

Michael Nicholson did not arrive at Celtic as a traditional Chief Executive. Instead, he came through the legal side of the business. That was his expertise. That was his value. How do we know? Because the minute he was appointed was also when we brought in Chris McKay as CFO. The club had never had a CFO before. As a result, that responsibility has been separated out.

Now, with the creation of a Head of Business Operations, another significant portion of what might reasonably sit under the CEO is being handed elsewhere.

Which brings us to the obvious question.

What, exactly, is the Chief Executive Officer doing?

This is not a cheap shot. It is not an attempt to personalise criticism. Instead, it is a structural question, and it goes to the heart of how the club is being run. Indeed, it goes to the heart of all the questions we’ve been asking about Nicholson for a long time.

In any organisation, the CEO is the focal point. He is the person who sets the tone. The person who defines the direction. The person who takes responsibility when things go wrong and speaks with authority when clarity is required.

They are visible. They are accountable and they are unmistakably in charge.

At Celtic, however, that clarity is difficult to see.

This has been a season that has demanded leadership. There have been moments of supporter unrest, issues around communication, questions over strategy and direction. In other words, situations where the club needed a strong, coherent voice to explain, to reassure, to take ownership. Yet that voice has been almost totally absent.

There was already very little reason to have this man hanging around. Today, there is even less reason to pay someone like this close to £1 million a year. What we are seeing is an expansion of the structure around the CEO. More roles. More layers. Greater specialisation. More people responsible for increasingly specific areas of the club’s operations.

Again, none of that is inherently wrong.

In fact, it can signal a club trying to modernise, trying to professionalise, and trying to bring in expertise where it is needed.

However, that only works when strong leadership anchors everything at the centre.

Without that, the problem is obvious.

It removes responsibility from his shoulders and puts it on someone else’s, and all the while Celtic continues to pretend this guy is still worth his current salary.

What it means in practical terms is that decision-making becomes ever opaquer. As a result, accountability becomes harder to trace. That suits some people. However, it does not suit Celtic as a whole. When something goes wrong, it is no longer clear who owns it. It sits somewhere within the structure, but nowhere definitively.

And football clubs cannot afford that, because football is not a normal business. It operates under constant scrutiny. Every decision is examined. Every mistake is magnified and every period of uncertainty creates noise, pressure and instability.

In that environment, leadership is not optional. It is essential.

On top of that, football requires dexterity of thought and action.

For example, if you lose a player to a major injury during a transfer window and it’s likely he’ll be out for months it might not have been part of your plan to buy someone in that position, but you need to consider whether or not it’s necessary and then do it, at speed, and probably before the rest of football recognises your need and jacks up the price.

The more layers decision making has to go through, the slower the process is. That’s an example that doesn’t intrude on this guy’s planned areas of responsibility, but the point is the same. When you need something done you don’t want to have to swim through treacle to get it done.

So, how much power to make decisions will this guy have in his role?

If he still has to pass most things up the chain of command it’s basically ludicrous.

Look, this new appointment may well improve the day-to-day running of the club. It may enhance supporter services and deliver a more professional, more consistent experience across multiple areas. All of that would be welcome.

But it must also sharpen the focus on the role above it.

If the CEO is no longer the primary financial authority, and no longer directly overseeing key operational areas, and is not visibly leading the club’s communication or strategic direction, then the nature of the role itself comes into question.

Not out of malice. Not out of impatience. Instead, out of necessity.

Celtic are clearly building a more complex executive structure. They are adding layers, adding expertise, adding specialisation in areas that matter. That is what modern organisations ought to try to do.

But modern organisations also require clarity at the top. They require a figure who is visibly in control, who connects all those moving parts, who ensures that complexity does not become confusion. Right now, that clarity is not obvious.

To put it more bluntly, Michael Nicholson appears grossly incapable of that.

And that is why this appointment, more than any other, does not just raise questions about operations, or supporter services, or internal structure.

Instead, it raises questions about the leadership itself, and whether or not this serves the club’s interests … or the interests of certain individuals who are onto a good thing and don’t want to give it up.

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