🔗 Share this article

Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief five-paragraph statement, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond savaged his former ally.

The man he convinced to come to the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. Plus the man he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and maybe for a time. Based on comments he has expressed lately, he has been keen to get another job. He will see this one 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. The club might well reach out to sound out 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 return - however strange as it may be - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of the former manager.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote he.

For a person who values decorum and places great store in dealings being conducted with confidentiality, if not complete secrecy, this was another illustration of how unusual things have become at the club.

Desmond, the organization's dominant figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the major decisions he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not attend club annual meetings, dispatching his son, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

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

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And that's just what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading Desmond's invective, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to get such a critical point?

If the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to inquire why was the manager not removed?

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

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity towards individuals of the management and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary allegation, that is. Legal representatives might be mobilising as we speak.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to better days, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded Desmond at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

It was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for Leicester.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans became a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' goals clashed with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with bells on, recently. He spoke openly about the slow process Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was concerned.

Time and again he spoke about the need for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the expensive one signing, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have cut it so far, with one already having departed - the manager demanded increased resources and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would typically minimize it and almost contradict what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like he was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

He didn't want to be there and he was arranging his exit, this was the implication of the article.

The fans were angered. They now saw him as akin to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his honor because his board members wouldn't support his plans to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it did. He called for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was clear the manager was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes