The creeping return of Peter Lawwell to centre stage at Celtic

Anyone looking in on Celtic over the last few months could be forgiven for thinking that the Peter Lawwell Show is in full swing.

On Friday the club’s former CEO was the first voice to speak at the unveiling of new manager Brendan Rodgers, showing no sign of self awareness over the reasons for the departure of the Irishman in February 2019.

That season Celtic lost a top manager, failed to reach the group stage of the Champions League while the CEO took home just over £3.5m in salary and bonus.

Michael Nicholson is technically CEO of Celtic, after serving under Lawwell for years it seems that he is quite comfortable giving the non-executive Chairman the profile and acclaim that he craves.

When Ange Postecoglou attended the finals of the SFA Youth Cup and Glasgow Cup at Hampden and Ibrox the non-executive Chairman was grinning away by his side for the benefit of photographers. You’re not likely to find Lawwell attending a match in the Lowland League.

Fortunately Dermot Desmond was streetwise enough to send his non-executive Chairman to the Champions League Final in Istanbul while Nicholson and Chris McKay went to Mallorca to convince Rodgers that things had changed since he was forced out of the club in 2019.

*The ‘Parkhead supremo’ is the non-executive Chairman of Celtic.

Charlie Marshall is a name that is likely to have most football fans turning to Google, turns out that he has been CEO of the European Clubs Association since 2018.

Michael Gannon of the Daily Record has hunted down Marshall to produce a fawning profile of the Celtic chief and the sterling work that big Peter has carried out against the vested interest trying to drive a Super League.

Lawwell has been on the Board of the ECA since 2014, during which time Scotland and other nations have been pushed into the margins.

Many champions now face four rounds of qualifiers, played in successive midweeks to qualify for the Champions League group. Since 2018 four clubs from the top four ranked leagues gain automatic qualification to the Champions League.

Every time the richer clubs from the richest leagues start discussing a breakaway UEFA concedes more to them regardless of what the Committees and Working Parties of the ECA have to say.

Next season there will be further changes to the Champions League, there may be slightly more money on offer to all clubs competing but there are still talks going on over two places being provided to teams with high coefficients that hadn’t qualified through their domestic leagues.

Effectively Liverpool and Chelsea could have a safety net of guaranteed Champions League football despite finishing outwith the top four in the EPL.

There is no coverage of that in today’s glowing Daily Record profile which does focus on Lawwell’s greatest pet project, the continuation of the O** F*** brand trademarked during his time as CEO.

The door is opened to James Bisgrove to join Celtic supremo Lawwell at the top table, surely the question that needs asked is why Nicholson isn’t pushing his way into the decision making corridors of the ECA?

It wouldn’t be the greatest surprise if the Daily Record is soon breaking exclusive Celtic transfer news, in June 2020 Lawwell gave his last ever newspaper interview as Celtic CEO to Keith Jackson.

CLICK HERE for Marshall’s LinkedIn profile.