A PR disaster- Michael Stewart nails the Celtic statement

Michael Stewart has called out the statement issued by Celtic on Saturday night as a PR disaster and gobbledegook.

For good measure he accused the club of failing to read the room, the only phrase missing was gaslighting as the tweet for the statement reached more that four million people.

After a horrific week on the football pitch and transfer market it was a time for cool, calm heads at Celtic, for Michael Nicholson to demonstrate the leadership skills that delivered a salary and bonus around £1m for the year to 30 June 2025.

It is hard to believe but the main qualities of a CEO are leadership and decision making, under the slightest of pressure the ‘leading sports lawyer’ has failed miserably on both counts.

On Friday night a senior Celtic figure made a number of allegations about Brendan Rodgers to The Sun, Nicholson had all day Saturday to deal with that issue but decided to completely ignore it in a 1030 word rambling statement that he thought he could bury on Saturday night.

These days fans and news outlets are 24/7 Michael, that is your favoured legacy outlets and those pesky internet bampots that have been highlighting your multiple failings in recent times.

‘Penalty to Rangers’ might go down a treat to the elderly audience at the Celtic AGM but not in the outside world, there is nothing world class about anything Nicholson has done in his four years as CEO.

Saturday’s statement was confirmation that Nicholson has completely lost the plot, so much so that he was afraid to put his name to the 1030 words.

Stewart has no allegiances in Scottish football, his outspoken comments make him worth listening to in a world of blandness where Steven Thompson and James McFadden say a lot of nothings whatever the issue.

On Sunday Sportsound Stewart didn’t hold back when he was asked his thoughts on Celtic’s Saturday night statement.

The statement is an absolute PR disaster. Talk about not being able to read the room. Of course, they were under pressure. They felt like they had to speak but, to be perfectly honest, they’d have been better just being quiet than coming out with that.

They are conflating all sorts of things. And it’s gobbledegook. That statement is trying to justify the end result.

The fact is they’re now a striker down. Whether it’s quality or not, it’s just simple numbers.

Kyogo Furuhashi went in January and wasn’t replaced. Idah was let go and was eventually replaced after the window shut.

At no juncture in that statement did the Celtic board actually just come out say, ‘you know what, it’s not been as good as we hoped’.

That statement could’ve been one word – ‘sorry’.” That could have been it. It didn’t look as if there was any self-reflection.