Football - FA Premier League - Liverpool FC v West Ham United FC LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - Sunday, April 13, 2025: Liverpool s head coach Arne Slot and his staff first assistant coach Sipke Hulshoff, assistant coach John Heitinga and first team individual development coach Aaron Briggs stand for a minute s silence to remember the victims of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster ahead of the 36th Anniversary before the FA Premier League match between Liverpool FC and West Ham United FC at Anfield. Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda LIVERPOOL Anfield MERSEYSIDE ENGLAND PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK Copyright: Imago Images
Celtic Football Club appears to have ground to a near-total halt, with no meaningful activity evident in the weeks following their league title win last month.
The club has responded to a growing crisis of leadership by launching a third strip, meaning Celtic currently have more kits than they do coaches available to the manager.
Pre-season training is scheduled to begin on Friday for those players not currently participating in the World Cup, adding urgency to an already alarming situation.
Since clinching the title, Celtic have lost three members of their backroom staff, with Shaun Maloney, Mark Fotheringham, and Gavin Strachan all departing the club.
Maloney and Fotheringham were reportedly insulted sufficiently to decline Celtic’s offer of re-employment on reduced wages, while Strachan has departed for West Brom.
Martin O’Neill now stands without assistants in the coaching department, no chairman above him, and no head of recruitment to shape the squad ahead of the new season.
Columnist Hugh Keevins captured the mood bluntly, writing that O’Neill “will look behind him on the touchline at kick-off against Dundee on August 3 and there’ll be no-one left in the home dug-out.”
The new third strip has been framed by the club as a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Lisbon Lions’ victory over Inter Milan in the European Cup final, though supporters have not received it warmly.
Keevins described fan reaction to the kit launch as “as vicious as it has been vociferous,” reflecting the broader anger at the club’s apparent indifference to pressing football matters.
Chief Executive Michael Nicholson has remained entirely silent throughout what Keevins described as twelve months of turbulence, despite drawing a salary that would, as the columnist put it, “be life-changing for the Celtic support.”
No director or executive has publicly addressed the exodus of backroom staff, the absence of a chairman, or the lack of any visible recruitment strategy ahead of the new campaign.
Keevins admitted he has exhausted his capacity to criticise the board constructively, writing that Celtic’s hierarchy had “broken my personal blame-ometer” and made “redundant all attempts at logic.”
The question of who is making decisions at the club remains unanswered, with speculation pointing toward majority shareholder Dermot Desmond, though no confirmation of any directive has been offered publicly.
Celtic’s silence is made all the more striking by the fact that the club operates one of the most commercially powerful supporter bases in world football, built entirely on extraordinary fan loyalty.
As Keevins concluded with sharp economy, the club’s unspoken message to its own fanbase appears to be simply: “Give us your money. Go away.”
About the Author
