Welcome to Simulation Celtic, the endless, continuous loop of it

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The Celtic Star

·01 de novembro de 2025

Welcome to Simulation Celtic, the endless, continuous loop of it

Rumours, eh? Somewhere out there, in someone’s Celtic simulation, the tectonic plates under Celtic Park are grinding again…

Celtic Fans Collective protest at Celtic Park ahead of the Celtic v Falkirk match. 29 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

Lawwell, the man who never really leaves, is retiring immediately, apparently for the second, third, or fifteenth time, depending on which version of the simulation you’re trapped in. Sorry if you’re still in single digits. Much pity for those debuting in this rodeo.

Vídeos OneFootball

Michael Nicholson has floated off to UEFA, that bureaucratic cloud city in the sky where good soldiers go after keeping the peace in Desmond’s empire, provided they haven’t angered the overlord, or they know where the skeletons sleep. Two more non-execs are vaporised in the same breath, so quickly we missed who they were.

And in walks the fresh face, from Leicester, the new CEO, bright-eyed and briefed to the hilt. Another ‘fresh start’ that smells faintly of an expensive education and purchased morals, or maybe of deja vu and and hollow assurances. Who knows anymore. As I said, this is not my first rodeo.

Celtic Fans Collective protest at Celtic Park ahead of the Celtic v Falkirk match. 29 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

You’d think by now they’d have learned. But this is Celtic, where the corridors of power echo with the spectres of false dawns and the eternal clinking of glasses at Parkhead’s corporate level. It’s a place where ‘change’ means everything shifts so that everything can stay exactly the same.

It was like this the last time. Lawwell bows out, McKay breezes in with reformist zeal, Nicholson smiles benignly in the background. Two months later, the guillotine drops. McKay’s gone. Lawwell’s back in some non-exec emeritus overlord capacity, and Nicholson becomes a man-shaped shadow of the man he replaced. Not quite a myrmidon, too meek to be a henchman, too overqualified to call a lackey, and such a light shade of pale you’ve never been sure he wasn’t a hologram.

Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 Dermot Desmond

“Experiment over,” the cynics said. They were right.

Three years later, we’re back in the same labyrinth, with the same minotaur waiting at the centre. Or are we? Who knows anymore. Reality is optional on Planet Celtic, and most of us opt against it in these parts.

Every so often, the faithful hope for a reckoning, for modernisation, transparency, vision. Instead, we get reshuffles that resemble hostage swaps. We get Desmond’s divine right reaffirmed, and press statements so bland they anaesthetise, or so venomous they feel like we’re eavesdropping on a fiery domestic fallout. And we get the creeping sense that no matter who’s at the front of the ship, the same hands are always gripping the wheel behind the curtain.

Celtic fan protest poster outside Celtic Park on 29 October 2025. Photo The Celtic Star

The truth, or is it? Celtic isn’t just a football club anymore. It’s a long-running psychological experiment on what happens when a support is asked to believe in change while being served the same dish of corporate cryptomnesia every season, on a maddening, inner-ear-piercing loop.

So yes, in someone’s simulation, Lawwell retires, Nicholson drifts off to UEFA, Susan gets the keys to the executive office, and somewhere in the mist, Desmond is still calling the shots.

The fans watch, often bewildered but rarely surprised anymore. Because in Simulation Celtic, the revolution is always just another round of musical chairs.

Celtic Chairman Peter Lawwell, Dermot Desmond, largest shareholder and Michael Nicholson CEO are seen during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Still, the hand goes up. Then more of them. But then many drop off, perhaps willing to believe that in this episode, in this loop, we’ll open our eyes to meadows and sunlight.

Welcome to Simulation Celtic, the endless, continuous loop of it.

The overthrow is never seen through to the end. The head of the beast is never severed.

Or does it happen in this simulation? Is this the final rodeo? Or do we go back to the start and begin again?

Niall J

Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter, signed copies by Danny McGrain available from celticstarbooks.com

Don’t miss the chance to purchase the late, great Celtic historian David Potter’s final book. All remaining copies have been signed by the legendary Celtic captain Danny McGrain PLUS you’ll also receive a FREE copy of David Potter’s Willie Fernie biography – Putting on the Style, and you’ll only be charged for postage on one book. Order from Celtic Star Books HERE.

Celtic in the Eighties and Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style both by David Potter. Photo The Celtic Star

Danny McGrain signing copies of Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Photo: Celtic Star Books