🔗 Share this article

Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short communication, the bombshell arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent fury.

In 551-words, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in that period and required being in their place. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was given over to an unending circuit of appearances and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

Currently - and perhaps for a while. Based on comments he has expressed lately, O'Neill has been keen to get another job. He will see this role as the ultimate chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic might well reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder described the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-preservation at the cost of everyone else," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright secrecy, this was another example of how abnormal things have become at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the power to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not attend club AGMs, sending his son, Ross, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's slow to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that he stepped down, but reviewing his invective, line by line, one must question why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He says his statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the lurch for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' goals came in contact with the club's operational approach, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He set a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a newspaper that purportedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He desired not to be present and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the story.

Supporters were angered. They now saw him as akin to a martyr who might be removed on his shield because his board members wouldn't back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was intended to hurt him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was shedding the support of the people in charge.

The regular {gripes