Kennedy is given the same ‘respect’ as Adam Sadler, Jack Lyons and Glen Driscoll. All four have left the club, no reasons are given, no gushing comments. Not a peep from Michael Nicholson, Peter Lawwell.
Michael Nicholson’s complete absence from the most dramatic night for the club in many a year merely confirms what we all knew. He is no leader. He won’t or can’t make decisions. He does drain a near £1m package in salary and bonus out of Celtic.
Let’s be absolutely clear: Dermot Desmond is not the owner of Celtic. He’s not the chairman, not the CEO, and not an elected voice of the support. He’s an unelected, unaccountable figure who’s somehow decided that Celtic exists to serve his ego.
Rodgers is guilty of the occasion tall tale about Danny McGrain or the Clyde Tunnel but this was taking things way too far. The final say over all football matters? Seriously.
Failure born from a decade of short-termism, underinvestment, and a boardroom that treats football as an inconvenience to its balance sheet. This is Celtic.
Chris Sutton presented the sensible balanced case. In the studio Lennon and Boyd were like a tag team with one idea being shared. Operation demonise Brendan!
The temper of the Chairman is bound to be tested. If he can’t be bothered attending matches he isn’t going to enjoy hearing Nicholson grilled about downsizing from fans/shareholders.
Longer term plans around stadium expansion with the preferred option to drop pitch which would add in roughly 4000 seats. No time scales given and all options still being explored.
Later that season, when Celtic won the league, Santa was wheeled out again on trophy day. The crowd laughed, applauded, played along. Harmless fun? Not quite. The joke’s target wasn’t Santa — it was the fans. The message: You booed when told to clap. Now you’ll clap when we tell…
Nicholson is paid a pretty penny to be the man at the helm, to do the part that Desmond doesn’t fancy, but he is clearly no leader. And that lack of leadership can be seen all across the club, especially on the pitch.