🔗 Share this article

Merely a quarter of an hour following Celtic issued the announcement of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph communication, the howitzer landed, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

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

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has expressed recently, he has been keen to get a new position. He'll view this one as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly make a call to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

All-out Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be parked because the most significant 'wow!' development was the harsh way the shareholder wrote of the former manager.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; divisive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and sets high importance in dealings being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the background. The remote leader, the one with the power to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any open setting.

He never attend club AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And even then, he's slow to speak out.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to support the organization with confidential missives to media organisations, but no statement is heard in the open.

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

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reviewing Desmond's invective, line by line, one must question why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is guilty of all of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "have contributed to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged animosity towards members of the executive team and the board. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

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

To return to happier times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded the shareholder at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers respected him and, truly, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the heat when Rodgers' returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the reappearance of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the trophies, and an uneasy peace with the supporters turned into a love-in again.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when his ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired again, with added intensity, recently. He publicly commented about the slow process Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be landed, then missed, as was too often 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.

Despite the club spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have cut it so far, with Idah since having left - the manager demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He set a bomb about a internal disunity within the club and then walked away. Upon questioning about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a publication that allegedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was damaging Celtic with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

The fans were enraged. They now viewed him as similar to a sacrificial figure who might be removed on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the responsible individual to be removed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

At that point it was clear Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes