Conventional wisdom has long maintained that the Celtic PLC Board has been a bastion of prudent management.
And it has been highly successful in executing a risk averse business strategy that has brought the club domestic success.
Of all the things that have annoyed me about the PLC Board in recent years this is one of the most irritating.
It’s based on a complete misunderstanding of the concept of risk management. Effective risk management delivers positive outcomes as well as avoiding catastrophes.
Far from being “risk averse” our Board have shown an appetite for risk to rival Mr Creosote.
Our Board, through its staggering lack of ambition, has been recklessly endangering our club’s future with a perverse approach to the management of risk for more than two decades.
How else could you describe our miserable record of failure to qualify for the Champions League in the last two decades?
SERIAL LOSERS- LIKE NO OTHER
Artmedia Bratislava, Maribor, Malmo, AEK Athens, Cluj, Ferencvaros, Midtjylland and Kairat Almaty – all clubs with far fewer resources than Celtic – have taken millions of pounds from our coffers by eliminating us from the Champions League prior to the group stages.
Money that could have been used to grow the club, sign better players and deliver sustained success in Europe as well as Scotland.
The inability or unwillingness of the Board to assemble a squad that was able to secure the funding available from CL qualification demonstrates an extreme carelessness about risk management.
Which brings us to the curious case of Paul Tisdale. Its difficult to see why anyone could believe that a managerial career spent at Team Bath, Exeter City, MK Dons, Bristol Rovers and Stevenage could equip anyone for a key role at a club which sells 53,000 season tickets every year.
Tisdale’s appointment to the newly created role of “Head of Football Operations” at Celtic in October 2024 remains a mystery and one which the Board has never sought to explain.
But if that defies explanation what can we possibly say about Wilf Nancy?
FOLLOWING RODGERS WITH NANCY!
How on earth could any rational board think that a coach who had finished seventh in the MLS Eastern Conference was a suitable successor to the only manager in Scottish football history who has won consecutive trebles?
Yet according to Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson Nancy “was our number one candidate when we began the process of of appointing a new manager”
This comment in itself is a sign of the desperate unprofessionalism that stalks the Celtic hierarchy.
You should always start a recruitment process with an open mind about the merits of the candidates. By his own admission Nicholson is conceding that there was bias from the outset.
Quite why Nancy was “our number one candidate”, like the appointment of Tisdale, remains a mystery.
But the reckless and ill-advised appointments of Tisdale and Nancy should not be seen as some sort of unprofessional aberration on the part of an otherwise reliable board and management team.
Rather they are a continuation of a casual, careless and unambitious approach to managing risk that has now delivered the worst month in Celtic’s history.
CELTIC NEVER MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MISS AN OPPORTUNITY
Jim Orr recently said on the ACSOM podcast that we have a Board which never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Time and again the Board have demonstrated an inability to build from a position of strength.
Our dismal recent history provides many instances of this.
Can they now build from a position of weakness?
Sadly, there are few grounds for optimism. A good start would be the removal of the CEO who appointed Tisdale and Nancy.
But I suspect the Board will again choose the risky option and stick with the guy who has failed in the past in the hope that he might get it right in the future.
The Mr Creosote approach to risk management has survived many mishaps. Its fervently to be desired that this catastrophe will finally wake the Board from its torpor. But I’m not holding my breath.
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