Michael Nicholson’s managed decline of Celtic has accelerated out of control.
Back in January it may have seemed like a world class decision to sell Kyogo Furuhashi but momentum doesn’t appear on spreadsheets or when you are high-fiving your boardroom colleagues over another addition to the Balance Sheet which should see turnover top £150m for the year to 30 June 2024.
Nicholson should collect around £1m for his part in that, short of the percentage that his mentor would scoop up but decent dosh for a CEO who never opened his gob all year.
When questioned at the 2024 Celtic AGM in November Nicholson was unable to name the last Academy player to come through and start a competitive match (Owen Moffat, December 2021 if you are reading Mick).
Back in January Celtic had a 17 point lead in the SPFL Premiership going into the Champions League tie at home to YB Bern, a victory would ensure a place in the top 24 and kerching another full house pay day to boost turnover even further. Five Champions League pay days in the same season- just how world class is the Celtic CEO?
A late own goal gave Celtic victory, Kyogo’s sale was green lighted after Nicholson has spent weeks working on the deal with the striker booked onto flights to Rennes the next day.
What a mover and shaker Nicholson is, so cocky was the Celtic CEO that he never even bothered to find a replacement never mind an improvement.
Word was sent out that Kyogo had been desperate to leave, most fans swallowed it and rejoiced at the team being weakened in order to bank £10m for a 30-year-old. Clearly Celtic were keener on the transfer than the striker.
The following week away to Aston Villa Brendan Rodgers gave Daniel Cummings his only first team appearance, not good enough for the SPFL Premiership, playing in the Lowland League and pitched in against Villa with only World Cup winner Emiliano Martinez between young Cummings and a scoring debut.
A few weeks later Celtic were playing Bayern Munich, in the Allianz Arena they were level at 2-2 on aggregate going into the final minutes.
Rodgers chose to use just two substitutes, Adam Idah and Yang Hyun-jun, if he had Kyogo or a replacement Celtic could well have knocked Bayern out to progress to the last 16 with an £8m UEFA bonus and another home match.
Leaving Munich Celtic fans nursed hopes of a return to the top level of the European game, a regular 10 matches in the Champions League, perhaps more if the stars aligned.
Unfortunately Nicholson had other ideas, that’s why he is a world class CEO even though he wouldn’t get a sniff of a significant job anywhere else in sport.
Unknown to Celtic’s brilliant young CEO the loss in Munich sent things into a tailspin.
Three SPFL matches were lost soon after, away to Hibs post Bayern, a Glasgow Derby then away against soon to be relegated St Johnstone.
True the SPFL title was secured for the fourth year running but the Scottish Cup was lost to Aberdeen, the Celtic side that finished that match is one that few fans would want to recall.
🟢 Swansea City are closing in on the signing of Celtic striker Adam Idah, with a deal worth around £7m nearing an agreement. More ⤵️
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) August 28, 2025
Nicholson had the chance to turn things around in the summer, to get the team back on the front foot by strengthening with the benefit of £80m in the bank and a £40m bonus on offer for getting through one Champions League qualifier that Celtic would be seeded in
Unfortunately for Celtic fans the vendetta that exploded in February 2019 hadn’t been resolved, it was bubbling away with the now Chairman extremely jealous of the success that Rodgers II was generating.
Nicholson’s entire Celtic career is due to the current Chairman, without him he’d be working in a Glasgow law office picking up around £120,000 a year, the best part of £800,000 less than he is extracting from Celtic.
To trim Rodgers’ wings Celtic made it known that they were open to selling all of their best players. All of them.
Football is a small village, players and agents are in constant contact, word was out that Celtic were on a selling push, signing players would be an after thought for the easier to please element of the support.
Rodgers agreed to the sale of Nicolas Kuhn assuming that the mistakes of not replacing Kyogo wouldn’t be repeated.
Never assume Brendan, certainly not when big Peter is in the house.
When Rodgers realised that Kuhn wasn’t being replaced he put the brakes on selling Marco Tilio to Rapid Vienna.
It was too late, the rot had set in, Nicholson was on a roll, getting a buzz out of selling off Celtic’s best players with the bonus of making the O** F*** rivalry more competitive.
The players that watched Kyogo and Kuhn get sold realised that they could be next, that they were more valued on the Balance Sheet than on the team sheet, that Nicholson would rather sell players than build a team.
Agents are well aware that Celtic are looking to sell, if they can get a better deal for their clients Nicholson will be easy to deal with, he knows how to close a sale.
Not the way to prepare for Champions League play-offs. It is now clear that moves to sell Idah were underway before the home match with Kairat Almat, no wonder he wasn’t fully focussed.
His team-mates knew what was going on, while they put their bodies on the line for the club Nicholson is pushing to sell them, even with £80m in the bank at the end of June, even with the sale of Kuhn Nicholson wants more and more money and that means sales.
With Idah on the way out it wouldn’t be a shock if interest emerges in Arne Engels, one of three players subjected to a concentrated briefing campaign to trash his contribution to the club. Their crime was costing more than £3m, if only their names had been Tilio, Odin Thiago Holm or Kwon Hyeok-kyu.
Despite playing in all 10 Champions League matches last season Idah, Engels and Auston Trusty have had their contributions constantly undermined by a select group of messengers with folk like Keith Jackson and Kris Boyd jumping on board to deflect from the failings of their own club. Celtic are happy to facilitate and feed these outlets.
In February Rodgers sent out a squad deliberately depleted from within that pushed Bayern Munich to the 178th minute in the Champions League before being knocked out.
On Sunday at Ibrox the Celtic boss will be without Alistair Johnston, Auston Trusty, Nicolas Kuhn, Jota and probably Idah from those that played in Munich.
Kieran Tierney has replaced Greg Taylor, there is no denying that although the former Kilmarnock man had no fitness issues.
Added to the squad are Michel-Ange Balikwisha, Shin Yamada, Johnny Kenny, Hayato Inamura and the mysterious Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, on loan for nine months from Manchester City.
Couldn’t mark his neck with a blow torch. Has the means to ensure his club is there but doesn’t press it through. Do you think he knows everyone’s laughing at him for allowing his club to fall to a club ranked 311.
— Anthony (@Postbhoy) August 28, 2025
If anyone wants to read up on the dangers of a managed decline they need look no further than Celtic 2025 with the club Chairman freeloading at the Champions League draw that his club lost out on to Kairat Almaty, watching a draw that included Bodo Glimt, Copenhagen, Qarabag and Cypriot champions Pafos. And, of course, as usual- Club Brugge.
Last season Celtic hosted five Champions League matches, it would be a brave or foolish fan that named when the next one will be.
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6 Comments
by Bhoy4life
I’ve often wondered why virtually all our ex players, maybe with a 2-3 exceptions, virtually never have a good word to say about the club once their time is over.
Compare that to the ex players from the circus across the city, and you would be hard pressed to name one that doesn’t glow with pride.
Maybe that comes from the top too.
Maybe they’ve experienced exactly what BR has.
Maybe they don’t really want to leave but are just told they are.
Everything I see and read about the suits just reinforces my view that they are completely detached from the needs and wants of the manager, the team and the fans.
Which would kinda make sense that most ex players leave thinking they’ve been treated like trash and don’t have a good word to say about their experience.
Wonder how long we would’ve held onto Henrik if PL had been in the building in his pomp?
by Mark
I mean no offence here but am comfortable with its tone.
I wouldn’t know or give one single minuscule damn what a Hun says, to whom, and when. I give not a single damn about the ravings of a Hun current player of Ibrox or a product of the SS Hun, of David Murray, financial-cheating Rangers, of Bill Struth, and some lunatics who had a dream.
I have seen many folk decry the Celtic plutocracy for doing all they can to help some Hun master plan to keep the business and rivalry tasty and valuable. Funny thing is, I have never once heard any utterance or sign that our board actually has any such influence. On the contrary.
I’ll give you a hint at the faction who are the biggest Celtic-related factor that keeps Rangers, sic Charles Green, remotely related or relevant these days?
No? Celtic fans who can’t shut up about “what about them / they’re coming / they’ll do this / they’ll do that”—a purely pathetic way to think.
What about them? What about them, indeed. A Hun fan is all that is worth serious contemplation and mockery. They support a team with the same chance as every other team in our league.
I don’t go on Hearts or Aberdeen fans’ phone-ins or Facebook groups and worry about them, so why on earth should I care about hun ex players and their glowing hun glazing? Imagine you went on and said ‘see Duncan Shearer in the news last night, pure Aberdeen bias made me sick, why cant Sutton do that’
You’d get sent home to never return.
Clubs are only relevant to Celtic when they’re on the same pitch on match day. The real dangers lie within the walls of Celtic Park, not in the Huns, past or present.
Geez. Peace.
by Stevie Bhoy
Lawwell and Nicholson… Untenable. Desmond can f**k off an all
by Trough Watcher
Good read and not one disagreeable part — the material on these scumbags is plentiful so the truth is there for all to see and really should leave no more hiding places for this little incel fud Nicholson.
Where I’ll go differently is Michael Nicholson himself. Not the decisions, not the spreadsheets — the man. What has he actually done to deserve the job? Playing Quidditch at St Aloysius clearly carries a lot of weight in the bowling club boardroom atop the Celtic Way, or spit shining Lawwell’s loafers secured the futures of his weans at Hogwarts. He was the cheaper in-house option, a man of insignificance suddenly bumped up because he was already in the building.
I’ve worked under “bosses” like him. They relied on my graft to get things done. I set the pace, not them. They couldn’t command respect, so they hid behind structure. Nicholson is exactly that type.
I’ve met Michael Nicholsons before. So have you. They’ll remember meeting us, but we’ll never remember meeting them. Because they’re irrelevant. They thrive in safe rooms, perfect in classrooms, useless in jungles. Out in the wild, they’re prey.
That’s who’s running Celtic. Not a villain, not a visionary. Just another forgettable man in a suit.
Michael Nicholson was never going to be a someone of importance, I would still be taking his lunch off him at this age if I had to work along him:
Those who give respect, get respect.
Celtic board are a shameless bunch of leaches. And he’s the leach in chief. No mistake
HH
by Bhoy4life
Nicholson is PL’s avatar.
1300 odd days without a chirp tells me Pete decides when he talks and what he says.
If PL leaves now and comes back in 6 months as the janny….he’s the janny that runs the club.
He answers to only one man, and as long as the dividend is good, he’s left to do as he pleases.
There should be a stand named after the Bunnet already, but methinks PL just wouldn’t allow that cos it isny all about him.
His locker needs emptied pronto.
by Trough Watcher
‘A stand named the bunnet’
Imagine having a stand worthy of the name. The main stand is another stain on the club. Mortifying.