Paul John Dykes has claimed that Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay take their summer holidays at separate times.
No big deal you might think but when they run their holidays back-to-back at a club as dysfunctional as Celtic it becomes a big issue.
As Chief Executive Officer and Chief Finance Officer the non-dynamic duo extract around £1.5m a year from Celtic in salary and bonus.
What they actually cost the club is anyone’s guess. It does seem to be the case that both have to be involved in transfer negotiations. Before sending an email off to Non Executive Directors for approval.
Without Nicholson and McKay in the building at the same time no transfer dealing is going to get off the ground.
Having a competent CEO and CFO would probably have seen Celtic involved in the 25/26 Champions League and avoided the Not Another Penny campaign.
It wouldn’t be ridiculous to suggest that Champions League football and normal merchandising could have added £30m to Celtic’s turnover.
Six weeks ago today Celtic won the Scottish Cup, beating Dunfermline 3-1 at Hampden.
In less than a month they start the 26/27 SPFL campaign. Quickly followed by a Champions League Play Off.
WHAT ON EARTH DOES NICHOLSON DO TO JUSTIFY £17,000 A WEEK?
As It Stands it looks like Martin O’Neill’s squad will be less prepared than Brendan Rodgers’ was a year ago.
This season it is likely that Celtic will face a better team than Kairat Almaty to reach the group phase.
A year ago Rodgers had Kieran Tierney and Ben Nygren added to his Starting XI. Both involved in pre-season training from Day 1.
From the Scottish Cup winning squad O’Neill is down Marcelo Saracchi and Kelechi Iheanacho. It seems that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is about to sign a one year contract. He will be 33 next month.
Some Celtic fans are puzzled by the lack of transfer activity. Others are conditioned to the lazy, sloppy way of doing business.
On Friday’s ACSOM Dykes shed some light on why Celtic are so slow to do business.
Hosting ACSOM for almost a decade he has built up good contacts in and around the club.
ACSOM has hosted events for Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan.
Others such as John Collins, Peter Grant and Johan Mjallby have shed light on the way that Celtic do business. Or don’t do business
Nine minutes into Friday’s show there was a gem shared with Jim Orr.
https://youtu.be/mfq_g4__OmU
Here’s one for you. So we hear that Michael Nicholson takes a fortnight off followed by Chris McKay. So for one month one of the guys doing the deals isn’t in the building. I mention that because fans need to know.
WHAT ARE THE TRANSFER SECRETS?
How Celtic conduct transfer business is anyone’s guess.
Head of Football Operations, Paul Tisdale left the club on January 5 with Wilfried Nancy.
That post was created for Tisdale, the former manager of Exeter City, Bath FC and MK Dons. How he got such a senior role at Celtic is another mystery.
What we do have is Minutes from a meeting with supporter groups on October 6.
Nicholson and McKay represented Celtic. The meeting was held just over a month after the transfer window closed, a few weeks before Rodgers resigned.
Nicholson is terrified of speaking in public. He is in no way a communicator.
Opening the meeting with fans on October 6 Nicholson was asked about the club’s strategy (foot of page3) :
MN confirmed that the Club’s strategy is clear – the Club aims to be a world class football club in everything we do. This includes footballing success through dominating in Scotland and competing in the UEFA Champions League, based on creation of UCL players through the academy, player recruitment, player trading, technical functions and development of training facilities.
That statement could have been created by Chat GPT. It means nothing, no specifics. Similar to his claim about the club aiming the be world class in everything it does. Nothing Celtic do is close to being world class.
Nicholson said that in June 2023 before presenting Brendan Rodgers with Odin Thiago-Holm, Marco Tilio, Maik Nawrocki, Kwon Hyeuk-kyu, Yang Hyun-jun, Gus Lagerbielke and Luis Palma.
The transfer fee for Jota was spend on that job lot of seven players.
Yang has turned out to be a competent second choice right winger. Palma made a contribution for around three months while the rest are best forgotten.
THE FAILINGS OF THE CELTIC TRANSFER MODEL
The fabled transfer model has failed to produce a profit on any of those players. Thiago-Holm and Nawrocki still have two years left on wages that they won’t get near anywhere else.
Later in the October 6 meeting (page 7) Nicholson provided more detail on how transfer business is processed. It seems to be much more of a Committee structure which begs the question of why pay £17,000 a week to a CEO?
The Club were asked to confirm who is responsible for conducting football transfers – including if the Chief Executive and CFO were directly involved in the same. Supporter Groups also sought confirmation as to who ‘values’ players and agrees commercial terms. CMcK explained that a multi-disciplinary approach is taken. This approach is led by the football department who identify players, with the executive team concluding transactions. This was noted by MN as not being unusual within football clubs. JG asked if the football manager sanctioned all signings, MN confirmed that he did. MGe asked why the Manager referred to some signings as ‘club signings’ – MN shrugged his shoulders.
A multi-disciplinary approach means nothing. Executive-speak for I’m not telling you. Nicholson shrugging his shoulders is all that any fan needs to know.
Critically final decisions need approval from Non Executive Directors, no doubt one in particular as the Minutes of the October 6 (page 7) meeting confirmed:
Supporter Groups questioned the involvement of NEDs within the transfer process. CMcK and MN confirmed that player trading above certain financial values require approval from the Celtic plc Board (with such approval thresholds are standard practice amongst businesses). Supporter Groups questioned how this approval was sought and CMcK confirmed board members would be emailed for final approval but would be aware of the background in advance.
With Nicholson and McKay taking separate holidays it seems that transfer deals don’t even reach the email stage.
On Tuesday Celtic play their first friendly of the season, away to Shelbourne. It is unlikely that the visitors team sheet will be world class.
Select Celtic365 as a “Preferred Source” on Google News for prompts to the independent news and opinions that you respect.
RELATED READING
CLICK HERE for Pat Nevin’s punches thrown at Shankland transcript.
CLICK HERE for what is behind the soaring Celtic share price?
