Celtic sideline Michael Nicholson

Michael Nicholson WON’T be involved in talks with Celtic fan groups to repair their fractured relationship with the club.

On Thursday Brian Wilson took to Celtic TV to try and bat away the prospect of a boycott of the Scottish Cup tie against Dundee.

The Celtic Fans Collective had called for a boycott on Wednesday morning sending a shiver through corporate Celtic.

Three days after the match Celtic have refused to announce the match attendance.

Fortunately there are ways to uncover the secret with 24,120 fans in the ground. That includes around 2,000 Dundee fans.

Clearly the call for a boycott was well received across the wider support.

Last season there were crowds of around 40,000 for Saturday evening home cup ties against Kilmarnock and Raith Rovers.

With the clock ticking towards the Season Ticket Renewal campaign there are obvious concerns inside Celtic that numbers will be down.

The attendance against Dundee also demolished the myth of the Season Ticket Waiting List. There isn’t 18,000 fans desperate to snap up any available tickets.

NO NEED FOR NICHOLSON

Any attempt to sweet talk fans around can’t involved Nicholson. Brian Wilson and Head of Legal George Campbell will represent Celtic.

As well as being central to serial failure at every level the Celtic CEO doesn’t have a grain of personality or humanity. Nicholson is the definition of an empty suit.

With 17 minutes 40 seconds remaining in the latest RGC podcast the discussion on talks with supporter groups got down to details

HOST: It got released saying that they’d invited fan groups, whereas, in point of fact, the invites had gone out 20 minutes or so before, was it even 20 minutes before the video got released Paul?

Paul: Some of them (invites to talks) didn’t go out at all. Some of them went out the following morning.

It really depended. I guess that you could argue that it depended on who they wanted to speak to most. I know from speaking to a number of people that got invites that it was very selective and very …. they didn’t all go out at the one time.

Some went out the day before, some went out the following day, some are still floating about.

So, there’s been a bit of fannying about with that just now but, that’s by the by, the main thing is that there is going to be some chats and some discussions which hopefully will be constructive.

CONCESSIONS NEEDED TO SUCCEED

Later Chris gave more detail, adding:

We spoke it last week and we said that the only way that they’d solve it is by talking. And Brian Wilson has put his head above the parapet.

The meeting invites that have gone out, as far as I understand and Paul can correct me if I’m wrong, it is Brian Wilson and George Campbell that as doing them. There is no involvement for our non-commuting Chief Exec. So that may be a positive. But I think that both parties will need to compromise on some of the things that they want, or don’t want.

Let’s be realistic, you’re not going to get a meeting next Wednesday and Michael Nicholson will be signing on on Thursday. That won’t happen.

Sidelining Nicholson would clearly be a huge step forward for Celtic but his hoops CV is going to restrict future employment options for the so-called leading sports lawyer.

YES- Don't doubt our mighty leader

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NO- Expect capitulation from the mouse

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