🔗 Share this article

Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic released the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in apparent anger.

Through 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the figure he again turned to after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's takedown, the jaw-dropping return of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an continuous circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is returned in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been keen to secure a new position. He'll view this one as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. The club could possibly reach out to contact Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the moment.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the brutal manner Desmond described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a branding of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "A single person's desire for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," stated he.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in business being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another illustration of how unusual things have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, in his place. He seldom, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to defend the organization with private missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when launching all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get this far down the line?

If Rodgers is culpable of all of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with the facts.

He claims his words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an remarkable charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

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

To return to happier days, they were tight, the two men. The manager lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the trophies, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a point when his goals came in contact with Celtic's business model, however.

This occurred in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for prospects to be secured, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have performed well to date, with one already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the team and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent news conference he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the article.

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his vision to bring triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the responsible individual to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

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

The regular {gripes