The story behind Wilfried Nancy’s appointment at Celtic is starting to become clearer, with more detail now coming out about how the club reached that decision.
Michael Nicholson was central to it according to reports online. The chief executive is reportedly understood to have led the process and pushed things forward once Nancy had been identified. That fits with how Celtic have been working in recent years, with senior executives taking a direct role.
Paul Tisdale was also reportedly involved. Before leaving the club alongside Nancy in January, he helped identify the Frenchman and backed him as a candidate.
But like past appointments, it did not come down to a shortlist alone. The final decision leaned heavily on direct contact and personal judgement at the top. That has been a clear pattern at Celtic for some time.
Journalist Michael Gannon has explained how it played out.
He said: (Hotline Live), “It depends on what Dermot Desmond thinks and decides to do. And it also depends on the market.
“Well, he was persuaded to pick him (Wilfried Nancy). He was persuaded to think this was the right guy and liked what he saw and he spoke to him and liked the cut of his jib.
“He had a 40-minute phone call a month before he was appointed and immediately said to him, I like what I hear, you’re my man. And the same thing happened with Ange Postecoglou as well.
“So Celtic, they never really have, usually you get a profile of managers and there’s a list of four guys and they’re all fairly similar and you think that’s the market they’re going for.
“They tend to be a Celtic, it can be four guys from four parts of the globe, four different age groups, styles. They don’t play by the rules, Celtic, when it comes to this kind of stuff, with management.
“So they could go in a variety of different directions. Wouldn’t surprise me with either, to be honest.”
That approach helps explain why Celtic’s choices can feel hard to read. A name might come through a proper search, but the final call often comes down to how they come across in a conversation.
Looking back, Nancy did not quite fit what the team needed, and the right choice would have been Martin O’Neill, who was appointed until the end of the season, as has been shown since his return in January.
The wider point still stands. Celtic do not stick to one clear path when picking a manager. Different backgrounds, different styles, and different routes into the job.
That leaves the next call wide open again. This time, they need to land on one that works from the start.
