Who is responsible when Celtic keeps making the same mistakes?

ARTICLE TWO OF EIGHT FROM NIALL J ON WHAT THE MINUTES FROM THE MONDAY NIGHT MEETING TELLS US AS CELTIC SUPPORTERS…

At Monday’s meeting between Celtic executives and fan representatives, the topic of accountability dominated much of the discussion. It was, in many ways, the question at the heart of the evening. Who is actually responsible when Celtic repeat the same failings, year after year, in the transfer market?

When supporters pressed for clarity on this point, CEO Michael Nicholson was clear, at least in principle. The executive and footballing teams, he said, are accountable to the Celtic plc Board.

That, in theory, is how governance works. But in practice, it’s a circular process, executives accountable to a board that they themselves largely influence, reviewed through “internal” processes that are never made public, and measured by criteria that only the Club defines.

Accountability, in this sense, becomes not a mechanism of scrutiny but a formality, like a closed loop of self-assessment that produces no meaningful change.

Nicholson repeated that confidentiality is essential in football operations, particularly around transfers. Fans didn’t disagree. Nobody expects line-by-line disclosure of negotiations.

What they do expect, however, is transparency of process, an understanding of how lessons are learned, who takes responsibility when objectives are missed, and what steps are being taken to ensure the same errors aren’t repeated.

Yet once again, the answer offered was familiar, there would be a review, and the Club would “think about how best it can communicate.”

That phrase, “we’ll look at this and come back to you”, has become a running theme of Celtic’s engagement with supporters. It is a polite way of ending the conversation without committing to anything. Fans at the meeting were quick to point out that this pattern is part of the problem. It’s not simply a communications issue, it’s a credibility issue. There is no accountability if the people who are supposed to be held accountable are the same ones conducting the review.

When the conversation shifted to the summer transfer window, the frustration deepened. Supporters asked why, once again, Celtic had failed to invest in key positions despite clear weaknesses in the squad and the manager’s public pleas for reinforcements.

Nicholson and Chief Financial Officer Chris McKay pointed to a familiar list of obstacles, player intent, club negotiations, taxation, market dynamics. These are, of course, realities of modern football. But they are also eerily familiar, almost word-for-word from the Club’s official statement last month. It’s as if the same paragraphs are dusted off and reissued every time things go wrong.

The real concern among supporters isn’t that these challenges exist, everyone understands that transfers are complex. The concern is that Celtic seem perpetually unprepared to overcome them.

Supporters don’t expect the club to sign every target, but they do expect the people responsible for recruitment to anticipate these variables and navigate them successfully. Every club faces market complexity, the best ones are proactive, not paralysed by it. When Celtic list challenges as excuses, it raises a bigger question, do the people in place actually have the expertise and agility required to meet them?

If these obstacles are truly insurmountable, as the rhetoric sometimes implies, then the environment will never change, and neither will Celtic’s results. Indeed, it in all likelihood, it will only get more complex. The support doesn’t need another list of reasons why the job is difficult. They need to hear about the solutions being implemented to ensure the same mistakes aren’t made again.

The minutes of the meeting make it clear that frustration was communicated. Representatives described the club’s transfer approach as “scattergun” and poorly aligned with the manager’s needs. The lack of early signings before UEFA qualifiers was held up as a case study in chronic unpreparedness, a theme that has persisted across multiple managers, recruitment chiefs, and three chief executives. The pattern is institutional, not incidental.

And that raises a deeper concern. If the issue lies in football operations, in the identification and execution of deals, then why were none of the club’s football operations staff present at the meeting? Seven senior representatives attended, yet not one of them came from the department most central to supporters’ concerns.

Continues on the next page…