Moderniser McKay Pushed in Boardroom Coup, Billionaire Needs to Explain Himself

Dom McKay was pushed. Despite the PLC-speak pleasantries about ‘personal reasons’ for yesterday’s ‘shock’ late Friday afternoon announcement it was soon clear enough what was really going on as the hacks at the Record, Herald/Glasgow Times and Daily Mail were briefed and the compliant Lawwellist blogger even reappeared on social media to give his cryptic inside info that he’d been spoon-fed by the same old source at the PLC.

Rumours were doing the rounds that all has not been well and the behind the scenes antics at Celtic over the past week were more chaotic than usual. The question many Celtic fans are asking is this: If the PLC Board are correct and Dom McKay isn’t the man for the job after all then who appointed him in the first place?

McKay came in, claimed that he had a major role in bringing in Ange Postecoglou and together these two men pretty much immediately turned around the hitherto unhappy support who were thereafter prepared to back the club with this new vision after the shameful collapse last season on the park and indeed in the boardroom. Under Dom McKay season tickets sold out – once again – and the club’s lucrative merchandising operation kicked back into top gear.

There was a feel good factor about the place even if the Australian quickly realised that he was struggling to put a team on the park in the early stages of the season and that he’d inherited the problem of the want aways – and all four were eventually moved on, and decent money was made in the circumstances from selling Kristoffer Ajer to Brentford, Odsonne Edouard to Crystal Palace and Ryan Christie to Bournemouth. Only Oliver Ntcham walked without a fee and it has to be noted that every effort was made to try to get something from him from AEK Athens.

Michael Nicholson will have played a leading role in all of the 12 incoming transfers this summer and indeed the departures – his title at the club is Director of Legal and Football Affairs so all contracts, all the various legal and technical formalities with for example dealing with UEFA, are in his remit.

He was very much a close associate and colleague of the former CEO Peter Lawwell and as a Board the Celtic PLC executives really do believe that they know best. It is their way and only their way and despite the views of the fans – who were justifiably unhappy after last season’s omnishambles, which was allowed to go on – and on – and on for so many months…then we waited…and waited…and waited for Eddie Howe to put ink on the contract that Nicholson would have given him…but we knew that there was a new approach in the Boardroom incoming as the Board appeared to have done one thing right in head-hunting Dom McKay from Scottish Rugby (where he had done an outstanding job) and he was due in the door on 1 July. All that delay cost us any chance of making it through to the Champions League an annual loss of £30m that is now just expected.

“In hindsight, Dominic McKay must wish he’d accepted that offer of help on the end of a phone. Peter Lawwell had a readymade crisis line on the nuts and bolts of running Celtic. And his successor chose not to call it.

“Inexperienced in the world of football transfers and rebuilding a football club, that was his first mistake. Regrettably, it wouldn’t be his last.

“Last night, the former chief operating officer of the Scottish Rugby Union paid a heavy price for his determination to go it alone when he lost the confidence of major shareholder Dermot Desmond… and jumped before he was pushed

“McKay expressed a desire to modernise and upgrade the club’s operations. He set out to be his own man. Plucked from the world of professional rugby, he knew nothing about football transfers — and he showed no inclination to accept a helping hand from those who did.”

“His ideas were incompatible with the major shareholder and the board of directors. While he felt ready for Celtic, Celtic simply weren’t ready for him. It’s unclear what this means for the modernisation of the club.”

Stephen McGowan wrote in Saturdays’ print edition of the Scottish Daily Mail[Page122/123].

60,000 Celtic fans have now bought season tickets based on what we thought was on offer. That new dawn we had bought into – and the support genuinely did exactly that – seems to have been pulled from under our feet.

Few Celtic fans are aware of Michael Nicholson and if you compare his track record over the past five or six years with Dom McKay’s achievements in modernising Scottish rugby, bringing in huge sponsorship deals, building a smaller stadium next to Murrayfield for Edinburgh to play on then you will maybe start to struggle to see how one isn’t suitable for the CEO job at Celtic but the other guy is.

But to be fair they told us why in their Friday afternoon statement. Nicholson is a ‘team player’, implying McKay is not. That really means McKay was wanting to do the thinks that he thought he was brought into do and told the support that he would but was frustrated and prevented from following this course of action and the only way to resolve this situation was to oust him and replace with Michael Nicholson.

If we are replacing McKay with a ‘team player’ like Michael Nicholson then what’s next? Shall we be surprised if Ange Postecoglou isn’t replaced by another ‘team player’ like John Kennedy? Both Nicholson and Kennedy are ‘Peter Lawwell’ men and would run the PLC’s football operations in exactly the way the Celtic PLC believe to be in the best interests of the (major) shareholders.

There will be 60,000 at Celtic Park today. How many there will have ever heard Michael Nicholson speak or would recognise him if he walked past you on the street? Very few I’d guess. It should be noted that he was highly regarded solicitor and has done a very professional job behind the scenes ensuring that Celtic’s processes and procedures are blue chip standard. The mess that the old Rangers got themselves into which eventually led to the liquidation of that football club will never be allowed to happen at Celtic, there is no danger of that happening but you have to take risks. Nicholson is risk averse.

With our risk there is no reward. McKay was guilty of trying to do the job he thought he was brought into do. He wanted to change the club, he talked about learning from clubs like Brentford, Seville and RB Salzburg and the changes that he wanted to implement weren’t supported by Dermot Desmond and others in the Celtic boardroom.

That’s not to say that there was no support for Dom McKay in the Celtic PLC Boardroom so  there could no be further upheaval in the days and weeks ahead. Celtic supporters deserves much more than we were given yesterday.

Dermot Desmond is the man who makes the calls at Celtic, he would have signed off on removing Dom McKay. Billionaire or no billionaire, he needs to explain himself.