The SPFL needs to end this Glasgow clubs farce. Nicholson makes it untenable.

Today, the future of Michael Nicholson appears to be settled.

Or does it?

I do not know. Nobody does. But he was elected to the SPFL board today, and already some people are trying to dress that up as if it means something profound.

For some, it apparently proves that he is going to remain chief executive of Celtic far into the future. Others are desperately trying to present it as some kind of vote of confidence in him, as if the rest of the clubs have looked at his work and decided that he is far smarter, sharper and better at his job than many of us realise.

Of course, none of that is true.

This is not a coronation. It is not protection. It is not a badge of executive brilliance. It is not proof that Nicholson is secretly playing 4D chess while the rest of us sit here failing to appreciate his genius.

It is nothing of the sort.

It is Scottish football doing what Scottish football so often does: rewarding position rather than performance, title rather than talent, and structure rather than substance.

That is the real story here.

The SPFL board is elected by the clubs, but the system around it tells us plenty about how backward this game remains. There has long been an understanding that one of the Glasgow clubs should have a voice around that table. That arrangement has been treated almost as if it is part of the natural order, regardless of whether the person occupying the seat has earned it, deserves it or brings anything of obvious value to the room.

That is not governance.

That is habit.

And Scottish football is full of habits which should have been thrown in the bin years ago.

Patrick Stewart’s spell at the Ibrox club should have taught people something about this. He was not exactly a towering figure of competence, yet he too found himself in that wider SPFL boardroom conversation. Then his own club moved on from him, because even they eventually had to recognise the obvious.

The lesson should be clear.

Being given one of these roles does not prove a man is good at his job. It proves only that the system is willing to elevate people because they happen to sit in certain boardrooms.

That is how you end up with mediocrity being treated as stature.

It is how you end up with Michael Nicholson on the SPFL board.

Nicholson should be nowhere near a major executive role in Scottish football. Frankly, many of us do not believe he should be in the major executive role he already occupies at Celtic. He got into the Celtic boardroom, somehow became chief executive, and has since presided over one of the most alienating periods between club and support in recent memory.

In any credible organisation, his record would invite pressure, scrutiny and serious questions about whether he remains the right person for the job. At Celtic, he drifts on. Now Scottish football has found a way to put him around another table.

That tells us more about Scottish football than it tells us about Nicholson.

The game here is badly run because it is still trapped in these old assumptions. It still behaves as though proximity to Celtic or the Ibrox club automatically confers authority. It still treats the Glasgow clubs as if they must always be represented, no matter who the individual representative happens to be.

That is not serious.

Other clubs must surely look at this and wonder what the game is doing. They have their own serious people, their own competent operators, their own directors who know how to run football clubs and engage properly with supporters. Then along comes someone like Nicholson, not because he has covered himself in glory, but because he happens to hold the right office at the right club at the right time.

That is the farce.

It is not a badge of honour.

It is not much different from watching some of our worst football writers win journalism awards. From the outside, it might look impressive. From inside Scotland, you know exactly how little it means. You know how the system works. You know what gets rewarded. You know why the game is in the mess it is in.

Nicholson’s presence on the SPFL board will not bring one obvious benefit to Celtic. It will not make our club better run. It will not fix the recruitment mess. It will not repair the relationship with supporters. It will not give us a football strategy. It will not explain the managerial shortlist. It will not address the lack of communication, leadership or vision that has defined his time as chief executive.

So what exactly are we celebrating?

That he has another title beside his name?

That he gets to sit in another room?

That Scottish football has once again found a way to mistake office for competence?

The journalists reporting this simply as a neat piece of boardroom news should get their heads out of their backsides and say plainly what this is. Michael Nicholson is not a popular, successful or widely respected chief executive among Celtic supporters. His presence on Celtic’s own board already insults and offends a significant part of the fan base. Many of us regard him as one of the poorest executive appointments in the modern history of the club.

I said recently on the podcast that he may be the single worst major appointment Celtic have made. I stand by that.

What has he brought to the table?

Aside from division, disharmony, silence and strategic confusion, what is the answer?

I do not care for the excuses anymore. He has looked weak. He has looked passive. He has looked like a man waiting for instructions rather than a man leading a football club. His strategic brain can be judged by the condition Celtic found itself in last season and by the shambles of a so-called managerial search which produced names that looked as if they had been pulled out of an old contacts book.

If the SPFL had real credibility, it would not have him near its executive leadership.

Whether the Glasgow-club arrangement exists in writing, in practice or simply as an old understanding nobody has ever had the courage to challenge, it belongs in the bin. It has belonged there for years.

I have been consistent on this.

I do not care whether Celtic ever has representation around that table again unless Celtic has earned it, deserves it and can send someone who merits the responsibility. If that never comes to pass, so be it. Anything is better than promoting mediocrity simply because the mediocrity happens to sit in our boardroom.

That is not leadership.

It is not prestige.

It is not influence.

It is another example of Scottish football rewarding the wrong things.

The great danger here is that people will try to use this appointment as a shield for Nicholson. They will say the clubs have voted for him, so he must be respected.

They will say the SPFL has placed trust in him, so his critics must be wrong. They will say this proves he is taken seriously in the game.

No. It proves the game does not take itself seriously enough.

Nicholson is not suddenly validated because Scottish football has given him another seat. He is still the same chief executive. He is still the same man whose communication with supporters has been dreadful. He is still the same man whose football strategy has been invisible. He is still the same man who has presided over a club that has too often felt leaderless, reactive and complacent.

Giving him more responsibility does not solve that.

It underlines it.

Perhaps the only thing that saves this from being truly dangerous is that the SPFL itself often seems too cautious, too limited and too lacking in ambition to do much real harm quickly. But that does not make this acceptable. It makes it worse, because it reminds us again how low the standards are.

No wonder the game is in a mess.

No wonder Celtic are in a mess.

This is what happens when systems reward position over competence and habit over judgement.

Michael Nicholson’s SPFL board seat is not a vote of confidence.

It is not a sign that he is safe.

It is not proof that his critics are wrong.

It is a symptom of the very problem we have been talking about for years.

Scottish football keeps elevating the wrong people, then wonders why nothing ever changes.