Michael Nicholson, it’s time to go.

I have reached the point where I can no longer dress this up in polite language. I cannot keep pretending that everything is merely unfortunate, that Celtic has been unlucky, or that these things simply happen in football. I have watched this club stumble over the same stone again and again, and I have had enough.

So, I have one simple message for Michael Nicholson: step away from Celtic and step down with immediate effect.

Every transfer window under his watch becomes another lesson in how opportunities can be wasted through hesitation, passivity and an astonishing inability to get deals over the line. Look at Kelechi Iheanacho and Marcelo Saracchi, two players who, according to the reports, were willing to embrace Celtic and appeared to want to wear the green and white Hoops.

Saracchi himself spoke openly about his disappointment, saying that he had hoped to become part of Celtic again. Those words matter. Players do not speak like that when the club means nothing to them. They speak like that because they felt something here. They experienced Paradise and understood what it means to represent Celtic. We had an option on Iheanacho which we allowed to expire.

Yet both deals slipped away. It’s a scandal.

Why do we keep hearing stories about players wanting Celtic, only for the move to collapse? That question keeps haunting me because it never seems to produce a satisfactory answer.

For a while now, I have tried to understand the reasoning. I have tried to be patient and believe that serious negotiations must be taking place quietly behind the scenes. Eventually, however, patience runs out. Mine certainly has.

We keep hearing about complicated negotiations, difficult agents and competition from other clubs. But football is competitive. Every club deals with agents and negotiates contracts. These are not unique challenges that Celtic alone has somehow discovered. They are part of the job.

The job is to find solutions, complete transfers and strengthen Celtic Football Club. When those things repeatedly fail to happen, serious questions must be asked of the person responsible.

I refuse to accept that disappointment after disappointment should simply become normal. I refuse to accept that missing transfer targets is just “how football works”. Not at Celtic. Not at a club with our history, and not at a club that Fergus McCann fought so hard to rescue.

Sometimes I genuinely believe the people inside the boardroom forget what they have inherited. Celtic is not an ordinary business or merely another company on a spreadsheet. Paradise is not an office, and our supporters are not customers who can simply switch to another brand.

Celtic is emotion, history, sacrifice and family.

That is why every failed opportunity hurts and every transfer collapse matters. These failures do not exist in isolation. They form part of a larger pattern, and every repetition weakens confidence in the people running the club.

I keep thinking about Fergus McCann. He inherited a club staring into the abyss, took risks, faced criticism and rebuilt Celtic. He gave the support back its pride and protected the club’s future when others had nearly allowed it to disappear.

That legacy deserves respect, competence and ambition. Above all, it deserves custodians who understand exactly what this football club represents.

Celtic fan hopes and dreams cannot be treated like Highland mist, there one moment and gone the next, as though none of this matters. Every decision, failed negotiation, transfer window, season and supporter matters. That is why I cannot simply shrug my shoulders whenever another deal disappears into thin air.

Perhaps that is our curse, or perhaps it is simply what happens when you love Celtic with every fibre of your being. I cannot switch those feelings off, become indifferent or accept mediocrity when it is dressed up as professionalism.

When Michael Nicholson tells supporters that negotiations are difficult, my first instinct is to ask why those difficulties always seem to produce the same outcome: it was close, it nearly happened, we tried. Why don’t other clubs have these difficulties?

I do not want nearly. I want deals completed, signatures on contracts, scarves held above heads and players walking onto the pitch at Paradise in green and white. That is what successful recruitment looks like. It does not look like an endless series of stories about what might have been.

No club completes every transfer it attempts, and nobody expects that. But when the same concerns surface in every window, when the same delays recur, when the same explanations are offered and the same targets disappear, it is no longer reasonable to dismiss it as bad luck.

It is a pattern, repeated again and again.

Something at our club is badly wrong. Those instincts rarely whisper. They roar. They warn me when clouds are gathering long before the rain arrives, and right now those clouds feel darker than ever.

I want Celtic to be respected in the transfer market. I want other clubs to know that when Celtic identifies a player, it acts decisively. I want players and agents to believe that Celtic can complete a deal professionally and without needless drama.

Instead, hesitation has become our trademark, and that is not good enough.

I do not care about excuses. I care about outcomes. If Celtic is serious about continuing to dominate domestically and competing in Europe, recruitment cannot remain one of the club’s greatest weaknesses. It must become one of its strengths.

That requires leadership, decisiveness and people who can deliver when it matters. Supporters invest emotionally, financially and spiritually in this football club. The least they deserve is confidence that the people responsible for building the squad are capable of carrying that responsibility.

At present, I have no such confidence in Michael Nicholson.

Some people may think these words are harsh. Perhaps they are. But this anger does not come from hatred. It comes from love, and love demands standards and accountability. It refuses to watch something precious lose its way without speaking out.

That is why I write and why I refuse to stay silent. Celtic deserves the best. Paradise deserves the best. The supporters deserve the best.

Michael Nicholson has had more than enough time to demonstrate that he can provide it. He has failed, and he should now step aside and allow Celtic to become the club it should already be.

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