🔗 Share this article

Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer arrived, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and required being back in a box. Plus the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said lately, O'Neill has been eager to get a new position. He'll view this role as the ultimate chance, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will serve as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

It was a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of Rodgers as untrustful, a source of untruths, a disseminator of misinformation; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not complete secrecy, this was a further example of how unusual situations have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant figure, moves in the margins. The remote leader, the individual with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his son, his son, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in nature. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is made in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

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

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not dismissed?

He has charged him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says his statements "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the club and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, indeed. Legal representatives might be preparing as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with Celtic's Model Once More'

Looking back to happier times, they were close, the two men. Rodgers praised Desmond at every turn, thanked him every chance. Rodgers respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

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

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's business model, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic conducted their player acquisitions, the endless delay for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m Adam Idah and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would usually minimize it and nearly reverse what he said.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a source close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He desired not to be there and he was arranging his way out, that was the implication of the story.

Supporters were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we heard nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the support of the people in charge.

The frequent {gripes