PAISLEY, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 25: Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson during a William Hill Premiership match between St Mirren and Celtic at the SMiSA Stadium, on August 25, 2024, in Paisley, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Michael Nicholson’s uncomfortable week in the spotlight shows no sign of easing up.
On Thursday night the TNT Sports cameras were on him as he say between his two besties watching the team that he has deliberately weakened toiling to a 2-0 defeat at home to a mid-table Portuguese club. It wasn’t Benfica, Porto or Sporting Lisbon.
Nicholson tucked his phone away when the cameras were on him, unfortunately his colleague Chris McKay was laughing away at the top banter from his Whats App chat groups.
Today against Motherwell the dysfunctional trio won’t have to worry about the Celtic TV camera being on them but there will be plenty of abuse and chants heading the way of a CEO who is apparently a top sports lawyer.
— CelticQuote (@CelticQuote) October 2, 2025
Nicholson has made one media appearance as CEO, alongside his mentor Peter Lawwell and Brendan Rodgers in June 2023, the comment above sums up why he is kept away from the media and any direct criticism.
During the summer Plymouth Argyle, Go Ahead Eagles and Swansea City all went public over the lack of professionalism they encountered in transfer dealings with Celtic.
None of those clubs carry a grudge, they responded to local media about ongoing transfer activities.
In truth other than executive payments, perks and rewards there is nothing close to world class about Celtic.
Tomorrow Nicholson faces the Celtic Collective, tea, biscuits and patronising won’t be good enough with this audience.
And the clock is ticking towards the AGM, gags about penalty to Rangers are never good enough, never.
The international break isn’t going to provide and respite or a deflection, Monday’s meeting means more to the Celtic support than anything else happening around the club, a meeting that is lose lose for Nicholson.
He either informs the Collective of changes in the pipeline which basically is an admission of the long term failings or he doubles down and tells them that all is well, trust the process and the success will continue.
No one will be accepting that from the man that sold Kyogo, Nicolas Kuhn and Adam Idah in order to donate £11.75m to HMRC as the price of deliberately weakening the first team, to reduce Brendan Rodgers’ chances of success.
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While I admit to not to have read Celtic’s accounts beyond the fact that they made a £34M profit and that overall profit was down, but where has the £34M gone?
Regardless of whether player wages went up, writing down player values as contracts tick down, or revaluing assets downward, the club still announced a £34M profit, so regardless of the above where has that money gone?
We made a profit in the sale of Kuhn, Idah, and other fringe players against players brought in. We did the same in January when Kyogo left and Jot returned. Where has a profit of £34M that we had at the end of June gone?
Editor: Kuhn and Idah were post 30 June, they will show in the 25/26 accounts alongside the players that Nicholson manages to sell in January.
That was the point I was trying to make.
To the 30th of June 2024 we had £77M in the bank.
In thtwo transfer windows after that, summer and winter, we brought in more than we spent, wages may have gone up, we rebuilt Barrowfield, and we had the legacy abuse cases settled, yet we still made £34M, but the odd thing is the overall profit fell a little.
How can that be.
Sure, I don’t know a lot about accountancy, however to me if you start a financial year with £77M in the bank and you make £34M profit in that financial year, then how can your overall profit reduce?
Editor: The full accounts will be published soon including the payments to the ‘executive team’ but there is very little breakdown in Celtic accounts, they don’t reveal first team costs which is critical to UEFA FSR, the much higher overall wage bill is all that they disclose.
Change is now demanded by the Celtic collective fan base,Lawell is the cancer killing the dreams off all supporters,granted he done a great job back in the day but a man who would sacrifice his own son to keep himself in a comfy seat tells me exactly the type of man he is?
I genuinely think Lawwell junior is still running our Football Recruitment programme and that Daddy Lawwell’s jump in income from £40k to £120k for the ‘Ceremonial’ Chairman’s gig is camouflaging junior’s paypoke.