AN UPDATE ON WILFRIED NANCY LEAVING CELTIC: WHAT’S ACTUALLY GOING ON?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
They say times of crisis can bring out the best in us. However, they can also bring out the worst, judging by some of the vitriol that was spewed across social media last night.
I said yesterday that Wilfried Nancy was set to leave Celtic, and had entered negotiations to do so. Several outlets, both in fan media and in the legacy press ran the same story. Ultimately, the original source, Peter Martin of PLZ Soccer, is considered a credible source by many, especially with regards to Celtic.
Board Room “Vote Of Confidence” Doesn’t Negate Chance of Wilfried Nancy Leaving Celtic Shortly
As usual, rather than just speak to the fans like ordinary human beings, the Celtic Board instructed their friends over at the Daily Record to rubbish Martin’s story.
For his part, Peter Martin stands by what he said. And let’s be honest, the Celtic Board, and its various constituent members have already lied to fans on a few occasions this season. That is not a dig from me, that’s a statement of provable fact.
Particularly in his meeting with the Celtic fan collective back in October Michael Nicholson made some statements with regards to Celtic’s transfer policy and budgetary restraints that were, within hours of being made public, proven to be demonstrably false.
Putting it bluntly, if it’s a binary choice of whose word do you trust more, Peter Martin or Michael Nicholson, well, I’ll go with the one that hasn’t, to my knowledge, made any false statements to Celtic fans at any point so far this season.
So what is actually going on?
Well, as I mentioned after Sunday’s Cup Final, there were several senior first team players who were very angry with the manager, his attitude and his general conduct since joining Celtic. Again, I wasn’t in the room when these heated arguments allegedly took place.
Still, I’ve heard enough anecdotal evidence from multiple, unconnected sources, to believe there is indeed a great deal of unrest behind the scenes, most of it caused by the obstinance and inflexibility of the new manager.
The players, of course, are not blameless here either. Whether they like the manager or not, they have a duty to carry out his orders to the best of their ability. For the past 4 games, they've clearly failed to do that.
Even so, in any walk of life the following should always apply:
If you believe you are right, but everyone else around you in the workplace is telling you you’ve got it wrong, then at the very least you need to take a step back and reconsider. You need to at least entertain the possibility that you might be wrong.
Let’s look again at what exactly Peter Martin said yesterday and how the Celtic Board responded.
Martin said: “I am led to believe that discussions are ongoing today about ending Wilfried Nancy’s reign as Celtic manager”.
Now from my point of view that is where things stood at 12am Japan time last night, when I published my latest update on the situation before heading to bed.
Then I woke up this morning, the entire situation had changed, and I’ve got people calling me everything from a liar to an AI bot, and just about everything in between.
Now, this isn’t about me, such idiocy is unfortunately par for the course for anyone who writes for a living and relies on social media to disseminate their work. But for the record, I stand by what I wrote last night, as it was based on all the available information at the time, and it came from a source I believe to be, generally, trustworthy.
Also, let’s not dismiss the possibility that what Peter Martin said yesterday may well turn out to have been true all along.
Celtic could well be in negotiations to relieve Wilfried Nancy and his backroom team of their duties. However, considering the man has only been in position for 2 weeks of his 2-and-a-half-year contract, and both he and his staff uprooted themselves from the US, where they enjoyed plenty of success and none of the pressure they are under in Scotland, I would imagine, getting them out of Celtic Park is going to be a very expensive undertaking.
Nancy doesn’t strike me as the type to meekly admit defeat and retreat into the shadows. I think he’ll be here until the Celtic Board decide to take that decision out of his hands.
I would imagine, therefore, that such negotiations, if they started yesterday, are quite complex and unlikely to be concluded in a day or two.
And I don’t believe even the Celtic Board are as disconnected from reality as to believe that this “vote of confidence” will do anything other than fuel further speculation about Wilfried Nancy leaving Celtic in short order.
Indeed, Peter Martin weighed in again later last night, with his own annotation to the Daily Record’s “vote of confidence” story.
He simply added the addendum “Don’t hold your breath”.
Let’s face it, how often in football does the “vote of confidence from the board” turn out, ultimately to have been nothing more than a holding position whilst the final details are worked out to move the manager on?
After all, there is a reason why they call it “the dreaded vote of confidence”.