We all want to force regime change at Celtic. But what exactly does that mean for you? Who can we force out and who should be first?
Personally, I don't think we'll be able to get rid of Desmond.
For me Lawwell, Nicholson and McKay are the ones we should be aiming to force out of the club.
Would we want them to all go asap? Would we be better getting rid of Lawwell first, and having a new Chairman appointment the next CEO? But could we afford another transfer window with Nicholson in charge?
Should we be pushing the club to get a DoF in first?
We all want change, but what's the best way for it to happen?
Discuss Who exactly.needs to go and when? in the Celtic Chat area at TalkCeltic.net.
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88jimmij88
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Dermot Desmond is the one that needs to go.
Lawwell and co run the club according to his general direciton. The lack of ambition, broad incompetence, and contempt for the support they exude ultimately reflect upon the policies he puts in place. If we got them fired, he would just replace them will different lackies.
Nothing will change until the club's ownership changes hands. It's the most difficult thing about the club to alter but fortunately it's been done before. -
Mr Shelby Administrator Administrator
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Desmond
Lawwell
Nicholson
Mckay
And anyone else complicit in this utter shitshow. Time for change.Agathe17, eire4, We named the dog Indiana and 3 others like this. -
By only seeking to get rid of Lawell & Nicholson it would change very little. Desmond is majority shareholder but has the influence of outright owner. That is due to years of manipulation, putting his own men in charge of the day to day running of the club. Why would he allow them to be removed and replaced with people who could jeopardise his influence. Desmond has to be removed or the other shareholders need to come together to challenge his influence.
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Desmond will be almost impossible to remove so you would be hoping he wakes up to the shitshow he is the head of and take proper steps to sort it and get rid of those in position and replace them folk with actual experience in football who are the best possible people for the roles ... it wont happen
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Liam Scales
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The most realistic and easiest one, it’s Lawwell. The one season he * off and we had the glimpse of life without him… Nicholson, guided by Ange was decisive and delivered.
It changed with the return Lawell. To the same old story.
Desmond it’s time to change. That is pretty much an impossible goal though.
It’s also a scary prospect into the unknown, he has absolutely delivered a guaranteed level of success under him. And it’s not enough that because it is an intentional holding us back in the meanwhile, but we all have seen clubs taken over from far, far worse. So it’s not just how to change hands from him, it’s how to change to the correct leadership for us. And that is something I just don’t think is possible.seanm likes this. -
Rather than releasing statements full of excuses, you'd think they read the room enough to even have one of Nicholson or Lawwell be the fall guy and removed from their position.
They actually think they're doing a good job because we win the league, despite holding every advantage you can name against the rest of the division :giggle1: -
lawwell should never have been allowed back in the door ,him nicholson and mckay need to go right away .you know what if players and managers are all subject to this limited cycle of employment then it should apply all the way up
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Why is Desmond so hard to remove? I'm absolutely no expert in this matter at all but could there be some sort of no confidence vote against him by the other shareholders or anything of the nature? Something to bring his position under threat at least.
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Almost impossible to get to get rid of a Desmond barring a massive heart attack after driving his ball out of bounds on the 14th
.
We mite get rid of Lawwell with enough pressure. He left once before so maybe if we keep pressure on him he might think he and his family no longer need this.
Easiest 2 would be Nicholson and McKay. I still think there's a chance to take the heat off themselves the other 2 bag Nicholson.
If that happens then the next CEO needs to be someone with absolutely no links to anyone on the board. He also needs to be an experienced CEO in football. And he must be given total control of the football department. The board give him a budget each year with the agreement it's his to spend how he feels necessary. Even if that is simply what comes in from sales is his to spend then it's still better than what we have been spending recently.
Any experienced CEO would then appoint a DoF bcoz pretty much every club now has one.
They would then be allowed to appoint a new head coach without being overruled by Desmond, with his "look into the whites of their eyes" bullshit.
It would then be up to the CEO and Dof to * the recruitment department and make changes if necessary. Personally I think Tisdale mite actually be decent at it but so much of recruitment is now going down the route of data so perhaps a more modern up to date way would be better.
And for me one the next big change after that would be the removal of Chris Mccart. Only at Celtic underground Lawwell would continued under performance lead to a 20 year career.
Interms of timings, wanting Nicholson away by end of the year, ideally with an announcement at AGM. New guy starts 1st of Jan, gets Dof in quickly and they then look at recruitment and youth academy's function over the next couple weeks/months while also having new manager lined up to come in the week after the season finishes.Last edited: Sep 7, 2025 at 7:43 AM -
Leone Naka Fan
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In my order of urgency, the following need to go:
1. Peter Lawwell
2. Dermot Desmond
3. Michael Nicholson
4. the rest of the board -
I'm no expert either but I read an article where it said roughly 20% of the shares are currently inactive. People have lost them or died and passed them on to family members who don't care, or people bought them just to say they owned a part of the club without having anymore interest in them than that.
I know the Celtic trust put a thing out recently where the offered to help retrieve them for people and possibly buy them off them but id imagine that would take some time.
So roughly it looking about 80% are able to vote, Desmond owns 34% of that and then he had pals and other people with similar interests as him owning enough to take him well above that 40% to essentially have total power without having to spend the money to get it officially.
Christ theres absolutely nothing that auld * will pay full price for.DonnyCelt likes this. -
thailandceltic From Immigration to Domination
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Double Dutch
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I think it would be more beneficial to try and force a change in strategy, rather than personnel. If the overall club strategy remains the same then replacing Nicholson, Lawwell McKay won't make that much of a difference imo.
Better solution for me is to convince those involved to prioritise getting quality in the door, loosen up in negotiations and bring in more staff to streamline the process. -
The more Ive read and listened to views on how Celtic are run, Lawwell doesnt seem to have the level of influence and involvement many think he does. Desmond seems to be the problem- the rest are just doing his bidding.
Its always telling when Rodgers talks about contracts or board conversations, he mentions Desmond. Hardly ever mentions the rest of them.
Michael Nicholson is an empty suit. Replace him in the current structure and nothing changes. Brian Wilson and Thomas Alison should step down simply because its ridiculous to have tenues of over 20 years on a board like Celtics. No real opinion on McKay and Brown only to say that judged by the objectives given to them they are probably doing well.
The problem seems to be Desmond having such a large stake in the club and sadly I dont think there is much we can do about that. -
I like the idea if it could work but the reality is that will never work.
This board has a history of doing this, downgrade a bit in a window, don't get reaction, downgrade a bit the next window and don't get a reaction, downgrade big time on the third window and get a big reaction, the next season sign 2/3 decent players and get the fans back onside, makes forget how * the previous 2/3 seasons were.
Then repeat.
Had we had a board with ambition at the start of the window they might have looked at it like this - wow we were close to winning our first European tie in nearly 20 years last year, against bayern Munich too. If we can keep this team together on the promise 3/4 big signings are coming in, we might just win a knockout tie this year and be profitable. If we don't win a knockout tie we may break even or be slightly down, let's go all in for winning a knock out tie. Instead this board thinks, hey we nearly won a knockout tie, we should qualify for CL comfortably and ash everything domestically, let's rest on our lawwellsMr Shelby likes this. -
I have a decent level of knowledge but not an expert. But it is very hard to remove someone who owns around a third of the club.
A group of investors could buy him out but that needs him to agree to sell and a sizable group.
Or a group could buy over 30% of shares to trigger a mandatory offer scenario but that still doesnt force him to sell if he doesnt want to.
In theory the board could revolt, issue a bunch of shares to dilute Desmonds, but that will never happen (and requires a board vote which includes Desmond).
From a board governance perspective those are really the only options. He may decide to sell if fans make enough noise and holding shares isnt fun, but besides that we cannot actually "sack the board" when it comes to Desmond as majority shareholder. -
Mr Shelby Administrator Administrator
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I don't think we should view getting shot of Desmond as "impossible". In the modern era that shouldn't be a thing.
How we do it? I don't have the answers. But there's enough people behind this now that we could, as a support, start something. It wouldn't happen overnight and may need to take a bit of pain on the park to achieve but these guys can't stay in charge. -
Mr Shelby Administrator Administrator
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Unfortunately they won't change, though. It's in their DNA.
We hired a new, young, forward thinking CEO in 2021 who had transformed Scottish rugby and wanted to bring about a different strategy. He was out after 3 months.
They are too stuck in their ways. I don't see much benefit to keep the likes of Nicholson. We can get another lawyer. He brings very little to the table it would appear from a footballing CEO perspective.
If we just get rid of one but the rest stay, it wouldn't work either as they'll just replace said person with another "pal".
The only way I can see change or trust that things will be different, is removing them all and bringing new, younger, modern investment like Hearts now have for instance.Agathe17 likes this.
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