Celtic Football Club finds itself mired in uncertainty and embarrassment as talks over Martin O’Neill’s formal appointment have stalled over backroom staff contracts.
It has now been 19 days since Callum McGregor lifted the Scottish Cup, yet the club has still not confirmed a management team for next season.
O’Neill may have shaken hands on a deal to become the new boss, but Celtic have been unable to finalise contracts with his proposed backroom staff.
Reports suggest the assistants have been low-balled over wages, which has rightly drawn anger from supporters who consider the delay completely unacceptable.
Shaun Maloney has been performing multiple roles simultaneously since January, covering pathways management, recruitment, scouting, and hands-on coaching duties throughout an exhausting second half of the campaign.
He deserves clarity on his role and reward commensurate with the sheer volume of work he took on during one of the club’s most turbulent seasons in recent memory.
Mark Fotheringham also deserves proper recognition, having dropped everything to answer Maloney’s call not once but twice within the space of weeks last season.
A one-year contract may suit O’Neill at 74 years old, but it offers little security for a young coach who may need to uproot his life to take the position.
To offer either man less money than they earned last term would represent, as one observer put it, “a major slap in the face” for two people instrumental in Celtic’s Double-winning rescue act.
The Double covered up a multitude of sins from last season, but barely had the trophies been secured before the stumbling and dithering began all over again.
There was the Robbie Keane sideshow, a sustained absence of communication from the club, and now this drawn-out failure to finalise the most basic of appointments.
What makes the situation even more extraordinary is that O’Neill is booked to appear on the speaking circuit this weekend, having signed up earlier in the year believing he would not be in management.
He is due on stage in Dumfries on Saturday and has two further shows scheduled in Uddingston on Sunday, meaning a soon-to-be Celtic manager could face public Q&A sessions he cannot honestly answer.
The very idea should be mortifying for the Celtic board, yet the embarrassment does not appear to have accelerated their decision-making in any meaningful way.
Celtic have had since January 5 to organise their structure, and if a replacement for previous manager Brendan Rodgers had been lined up sooner, far more of this preparation work would already be complete.
Instead, enormous questions are piling up well beyond the manager’s office, including who will serve as permanent chairman and whether Brian Wilson will return to the board.
The club also has no confirmed head of football operations or director of sport, leaving it deeply unclear who is responsible for managing transfers heading into a critical summer window.
Luis Palma, Stephen Welsh, and Hayato Inamura have already departed, while the futures of Kelechi Iheanacho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain remain unresolved with options on their contracts still to be decided.
Meanwhile, Rangers have already secured Lawrence Shankland and Hearts have brought in four new players, while Celtic appear unable to finalise deals for people already inside their own building.
If Celtic cannot sort contracts for existing staff, supporters will reasonably wonder what hope the club has of recruiting the fresh talent the squad so clearly needs this summer.
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