How Unrecoverable Breakdown Led to a Savage Separation for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic

Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the news of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory short statement, the howitzer arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in apparent anger.

Through an extensive statement, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his former ally.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the man he once more turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the club, and after much of his recent life was dedicated to an continuous series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his old hits at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has expressed recently, he has been eager to get a new position. 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 praise.

Will he give it up easily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the biggest shocking development was the harsh way the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the cost of others," wrote Desmond.

For somebody who prizes propriety and places great store in dealings being done with confidentiality, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how unusual things have grown at the club.

Desmond, the club's dominant presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he wants without having the responsibility of explaining them in any public forum.

He never participate in team annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's slow to communicate.

There have been instances on an occasion or two to defend the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he contradicted when going full thermonuclear on Rodgers on Monday.

The official line from the club is that he resigned, but reading his criticism, carefully, one must question why he permit it to get such a critical point?

Assuming the manager is culpable of every one of the things that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not dismissed?

He has accused him of spinning information in public that did not tally with the facts.

He claims Rodgers' statements "played a part to a hostile environment around the club and fuelled animosity towards members of the management and the directors. A portion of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

Such an extraordinary charge, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with Celtic's Model Again

To return to better times, they were close, the two men. The manager praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Brendan respected Dermot and, truly, to nobody else.

This was Desmond who took the heat when his returned happened, post-Postecoglou.

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy peace with the fans became a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - consistently - going to be a point when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's business model, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it transpired once more, with bells on, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the interminable waiting for targets to be secured, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the £11m one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the significant Auston Trusty - none of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having left - Rodgers pushed for increased resources and, often, he expressed this in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then walked away. Upon questioning about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? No, no, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like Rodgers was engaging in a risky game.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that allegedly originated from a source close to the organization. It said that Rodgers was damaging the team with his open criticisms and that his real motivation was orchestrating his departure plan.

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

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his board members did not back his plans to achieve success.

The leak was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry 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 plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the people above him.

The regular {gripes