GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 17: Celtic Chairman Peter Lawwell, Majority Shareholder Dermot Desmond, and Chief Executive Officer Michael Nicholson (L-R) during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and St Mirren at Celtic Park, on May 17, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
As more transfer deadlines and warnings pass by, the frustrations and anger of the Celtic support is growing.
Towards the end of last season Brendan Rodgers commented that to go forward a club has to either change the players or change the manager, it looks like that decision has been taken.
After losing 5-1 to Ajax he questioned the ambitions of the club.
On Friday, two days before the start of the SPFL season he declared that he wasn’t the man to stand still, he wasn’t a continuity manager.
After a week in which his signing was discussed, two days after turning up to watch the St Mirren game wearing a club tracksuit we got the traditional announcement that ‘Celtic are delighted to announce the LOAN signing of Jahmai Simpson-Pusey’.
Good luck to the guy as he uses Celtic to advance his career but there wasn’t much excitement outside of the usual circles over the loan signing of a teenager with 95 minutes playing time in the EPL.
It’s now 60+ days in to the transfer window.
Celtic have earned around £25M & invested around £3M in to improving the squad with competitive fixtures already underway. pic.twitter.com/40cG6moBr0
— Everything Celtic (@aboutceltic) August 5, 2025
Overseeing all of this is leading sports lawyer Michael Nicholson, a man who picked up £836,325 from Celtic in the year to 30 June 2024, the equivalent of around 1,200 Season Tickets going directly his way. Picking up just £122,874, it only requires about 175 full priced Season Tickets to pay for the ‘ceremonial’ role of the club Chairman.
In his one and only media interview, given in June 2023 Nicholson splurted out that the ambitions of Celtic are to be ‘world class in everything that we do’. No detail has ever been released on where that has been achieved.
It is little wonder that he has never said another word since, not even a fawning interview with Gerry McCulloch for Celtic TV.
The next signing deadline is August 14, for the Champions League Play Off ties on August 20 and 26.
Brendan Rodgers can probably already guess what is coming his way- the same reaction to his previous calls to reinvest some of the money coming in from player sales.
Are you happy with Celtic's transfer activity
Absolutely- fantastic business
I will judge on September 1
Horrific- feels like 2023 again
“Shambolic”.
— Marty Kane (@CFCBhoy1967) August 5, 2025
This was last August pic.twitter.com/uWzbiBFvtp
— Neil Roarty (@neilroarty) August 5, 2025
What’s more, we lost our star striker around 7 months ago and are still no further forward in replacing him it seems. It’s fkn grim.
— FitbaHeid ?? (@FitbaHeid) August 5, 2025
Michael Nicholson as Chief Executive, should have a structure in place at the Club to make us ‘world class in everything we do’. If we fail to adequately strengthen and subsequently fail to qualify for CL, it’s down to him…. look what he earned in 2024. pic.twitter.com/Xe6SUowldX
— JimLeitrim2 (@JimLeitrim2) August 5, 2025

Genuinely unbelievable how bad a job Nicholson is doing. Terrible communicator, pathetic negotiator. Squad and stadium in dire need of investment and hes never even gave us as much as a celtic tv interview.
— Mike Marino ? (@MikeMarino67) August 5, 2025
Nobody should be surprised by the boards behaviour, it’s the same every season unless they get bullied by the likes of Ange or Lenny…..Brendan should just get on with it, the rest of us should do the same as we are living under a dictatorship
— God Is A Catholic (@EricStr04446845) August 5, 2025
The board is playing dirty…they are only interested in profits and not the good of the team…they are the biggest obstacle to Celtic’s growth…the fans deserve better
— Ces8c7 (@Fmandri87) August 6, 2025
I had a look through the transfers since Ange arrived four years ago. Over £30m clear profit on player sales at this point, excluding sell-on clauses. I get that the board wants to be prudent, but all the figures on a balance sheet won’t make a difference on the pitch.
— Hugh Parker (@hughp1970) August 5, 2025

Only surprise is that some Celtic fans are surprised about being treated with utter contempt by DD. He calls their collective bluff every year. Writing was on the wall in 2004 when Henrik was ‘replaced’ with Henri Camara on loan.I gave my ST up the next year Wake up fools!
But will the greed of the board stop , I think we all know the answer to that question, the only way to stop this corporate greed is to stop funding them stop buying anything it might just save this season
The board plays on the love and loyalty from the fans, they won’t answer or talk to the fans, and the fans just keep giving them money, the fans have to stop buying anything celtic related that funds them.
By all means get youre season book and go and support the team. But don’t buy anything else until there is change. Surely we have been fools for long enough.
It’s utter contempt & disgusts me. I’ve boycotted the food stalls as ‘our own people’ rip us off.
The same with merchandise with the shit strips (home one ia always good) Never gonna buy a single item from that shop & never have for 7 years.
Brother Walfrid would be disgusted by this money hoarding board or is it better spelled whore-ding board. Pay my season book and my European package, usually get to 2 away games but that’s it for me.
I’m sure boycotting merchandise and over inflated food stores would hit them in the pocket if we ALL did this. It would be a START!! Money is all they care about. I prefer to get all my tops on FB for £10. Fcuk the lot of them!
Full house for flag day, the CL qualifier will be the same. The board know whatever greed they show, the stadium will be full, they feed off the passion and loyalty of the fans which unfortunately won’t change
Aye I don’t call Nicholson Lord ‘Lucan’ for nothing for sure !
Glad you used season tickets as an example against this wage thief. I am not on the home ticket scheme but a season ticket holder none the less why am I being charged a £1-50 booking fee over and above the cost of a ticket for the home cup game next Friday?.
Not sure it’s all down to PL… Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the golfing a-hole with only 34%of the plc that is pulling the strings as far as signings are concerned. Fergus Mcann must have been sitting raging like the rest of us watching that crap at the weekend. He obviously didn’t put enough checks and stops on the selling of the club to dictator
Editor: There is a massive deflection action underway to blame DD, it isn’t hard to work out who is behind this campaign, same guy blaming Engels, Idah and Trusty for all ills.
Totally agree with Dan, sevco have backed four maybe five of their last managers with cash no matter what they had in the bank and look at the state of us , they have brought in I think it is 9 players but we dither along watched part of sevco last night hoping they would get beat and they played some nice moving football I think this season will be touch and go through our board’s negligence and Brendan will move on.
The board is there to make money for Desmond, not to help improve the team or the stadium.
The polar opposite of the Sevco board for Cavanagh then !
The Huns must be rubbing their hands at watching us become the new Sevco- we seem to be shrinking to fit…. the fans need to show Nicholson he’s clearly not welcome and not fit for purpose…. maybe the GB can create a song to embarrass and chase the See You Next Tuesday….
Watched bits of Sevco last night. The two wingers they’ve bought might be a flash in the pan, but they’re exactly what we need. And, Mr Nicholson, they were cheap.
The only thing that I can think of why the board are playing Scrooge with new recruits, is that if most reports are accurate and Brendan leaves at the end of his contract this season end , then they don’t want to spend big money now as the new manager will want to bring in his own new players which will be costly ? All they have to do is thrash out a new deal for Rodgers to remain as boss and finance any new players he requires ..right now ? That would solve and prevent any possible complications which may occur otherwise ? It’s the silence from ‘the greys ‘ of the board , which is the worst !
The club has managed to create a no-win situation all by itself.
Even if PL/MN agreed on buying one or two, higher-priced quality players,
these players would quite rightly want to know about BR’s position?
If BR had been given – and signed – a contract extension BEFORE the transfer window
even opened, then that would have been preferable?
The perception now is that BR is leaving at the end of the season.
For the last few weeks, and almost every article on the club from every website, mainstream news, social media, all show fan frustration. There’s a word that seems linked to it all – SILENCE.
The fact that nothing has been responded to, no good deals seem to be finalising, no news at all on next steps, a frustrated manager and us lot are perplexed wondering why, why would any business blatantly ignore the pressing need? It reminds me of water companies in England. Actually that’s unfair, at least the likes of Thames Water etc send a spokesperson out to drum up some positive nonsense. We don’t even get that. We just get utter……….silence.
The optimistic part is saying we just need 2 wingers and maybe a striker. But at least wingers with Yamada and Idah as backup to Daizen. If we spent £10M on 2, that got us into the group stages, we’d have already trebled that outlay overnight.
But the proof is in the pudding. As the clock ticks, we’ll wait and see
He’s embarrassed to do interviews because he does f**k all for the salary he picks up… anybody would
Just what exactly is the point of having money in the bank at a football club if it isn’t being used to improve the squad?