🔗 Share this article

Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' surprising departure via a brief short communication, the howitzer landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

The man he convinced to come to the team when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and needed putting back in a box. And the man he once more relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

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

Two decades after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has said lately, he has been keen to secure a new position. He will view this role as the ultimate opportunity, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and praise.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will serve as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

The new manager's return - however strange as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' development was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a source of untruths, a spreader of falsehoods; disruptive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's wish for self-preservation at the expense of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who values decorum and places great store in business being done with discretion, if not outright secrecy, here was a further illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about the team unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but nothing is heard in the open.

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

The official line from the club is that Rodgers resigned, but reading his invective, carefully, you have to wonder why he allow it to reach this far down the line?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why was the manager not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unjustified and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Strategy Again

To return to happier times, they were tight, the two men. Rodgers lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to Dermot and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who drew the heat when his comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Gradually, the manager employed the charm, delivered the wins and the trophies, and an fragile peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable waiting 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 called "agility" in the transfer window. The fans agreed with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a twelve-month period on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah already having left - the manager demanded more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like he was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a source close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

Supporters were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members wouldn't back his plans to bring success.

This disclosure was damaging, of course, and it was intended to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be removed. If there was a probe then we heard nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear the manager was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The frequent {gripes