DERMOT DESMOND and the Celtic Board face the acid test…
Suppose you asked your friend (let’s call him Michael) to find you an electrician to rewire your house.
After trawling through potential candidates for six weeks Michael calls you up and tells you that he has found the perfect man for the job. His name is Wilf.
Better still, despite a huge number of possibilities, this was the guy that was always top of his list. Michael apologises for taking so long but he explains that “good things are worth waiting for”. He is 100 per cent confident that Wilf will do a fantastic job for you.
One month later you return home and find that your house has burned down.
Wilf turned out to be a total incompetent who had no idea what he was doing. Simply put Michael’s choice has cost you millions of pounds.
How would you respond?
NICHOLSON TURNS TO NUMBER TWO ON HIS CELTIC LIST?
It’s unlikely that you would say “Hey Mike, now that Wilf has burned my house down can you get me the guy that was second on your list? I need to start rebuilding”
And yet that appears to be the course that the board of Celtic PLC are following as they begin another search for a competent first team coach.
Since the dismissal of Nancy there has been no word from the Celtic Board as to how they plan to identify a permanent successor to the hapless Wilf and his band of assistants.
Similarly, nothing has been said about the fate of the CEO who masterminded the Nancy debacle.
No explanation has been offered as to why a coach whose side had finished seventh in the MLS Eastern Conference was ever seen as the man to fill the post once occupied by Jock Stein, Martin O’Neill and Brendan Rodgers.
And no one is explaining the financial implications of this debacle for the future of the club
There has been much chatter on the Celtic internet about how Michael Nicholson is likely to move on from Celtic at the appropriate juncture to a job that is suited to a ‘leading sports lawyer’.
PLAY IT AGAIN MIKEY
But in the absence of any information to the contrary we must assume that Michael will now begin the process of recruiting our next Head Coach. What else would he be doing?
No words could condemn the Celtic PLC Board more effectively than their silence on these matters.
Desmond has shown extreme loyalty to the people surrounding him and a tendency to duck difficult decisions. Loyalty that he is unlikely to mirror in his other businesses. But Celtic seems different.
In season 2020/21 he stuck with Neil Lennon in the vain hope that he could turn around a desperate situation.
His loyalty to the then Head Coach – delaying acting until we were EIGHTEEN points adrift of the top of the league – cost the club any chance of retaining the league title. As well as a play-off spot in the Champions League.
And Peter Lawwell, the CEO who resigned after his failure to deliver 10IAR, was asked back as PLC Chairman. Remarkably Lawwell’s exit as Chair comes at an even lower ebb for the club than his earlier departure as CEO.
FINE MARGINS AND TITLE RACES
More recently, loyalty to Nancy, the unwillingness to dismiss an obviously failed coach before the Glasgow Derby has cost us three valuable points. On top of the points tossed away to Hearts, Dundee United and Motherwell. Points that may end up ceding the league title to our rivals at Ibrox or Tynecastle.
The Celtic PLC Board has a consistent record of failing to do the right thing at the right time.
They prefer loyalty to their cronies around the table to the hard decisions that need to be taken for the benefit of the club.
The acid test for Dermot Desmond and the PLC Board is whether they can put the need for a competent CEO ahead of their loyalty to ‘leading sports lawyer’ Nicholson.
Sadly, there are few grounds for optimism. Over to you Dermo.
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