Dom McKay’s quotes go viral four years on as silence covers Celtic

Four years ago Dom McKay was the new broom, bringing freshness and openness to Celtic, an engaging CEO that realised that supporters, not customers were the key driver of everything that Celtic does.

He lasted 72 days in the job. Replaced by Peter Lawwell’s assistant.

It is almost four years since the announcement of McKay’s exit and the promotion to ‘interim’ CEO of Michael Nicholson.

There was no in-house interview from Nicholson, soon after the 2021 AGM another bland club statement confirmed that he had the job on a permanent basis.

He has never spoken to Celtic’s in-house media other than around AGM regulations, in his only public interview, alongside Lawwell and Brendan Rodgers in June 2023 the club CEO claimed that the ambitions of the club was to be world class in everything that they do.

That remains a huge list, other than extracting money from supporters/customers nothing about Celtic is anywhere near being world class.

During his brief spell as CEO McKay was key to getting supporters back into the stadium, getting Ange Postecoglou settled into the job and signing Liel Abada, Kyogo Furuhashi, Carl Starfelt, Joe Hart, Josip Juranoviv, Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Giorgos Giakoumakis.

He also phoned round every fan media outlet and held a media conference with Ange Postecoglou, specifically for fan media.

Beyond a tacky gag of ‘penalty to Rangers’ in reply to a question about John Beaton, his successor, Nicholson has had next to nothing to say on anything.

Listen to what Dom McKay had to say 4 years ago.

We have had zero engagement since his departure from the club.

The current board and CEO are not fit for purpose.

Clandestine, tired and uninspiring. They are not interested in moving our club forward.
pic.twitter.com/4X9m01VwrC

— gigicullen (@gigicullen0502) August 20, 2025

Hopefully today demonstrates my openness and keenness to engage and that is going to be a cornerstone of my administration.

As a Celtic supporter I’ve spent my whole life supporting this club and feeling connected. I want to make sure that the connection that I felt growing up supporting this club continues, I’ve got a huge opportunity to lead it.

So, absolutely, connectivity between ourselves and the support is utterly vital.

I maybe said earlier on, one of the most important things that we are trying to grapple with is getting supporters back into the stadium. I’ve really missed it, you’ve really missed it being in among friends and colleagues watching the games.

So I think that we are making some good steps forward, the Euros have been really positive in terms of having crowds back, and you can see the energy that the players get from that.

That is the ultimate piece of connectivity, getting supporters back in but in terms of really making sure that we’re able to keeping you updated and listened to, we’ll definitely want to do that.

Once the initial plans for engagement with fan media were ditched by Nicholson a rota was drawn up where fan media outlets were invited roughly once a month to ask one question to a player or manager.

Gradually the list of fan media outlets has dropped, being treated with contempt as part of a box ticking exercise becomes pointless once the novelty wears off.