The Way Unrecoverable Breakdown Resulted in a Brutal Separation for Brendan Rodgers & Celtic FC

Merely fifteen minutes after the club released the news of their manager's surprising resignation via a brief five-paragraph statement, the howitzer landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

In an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

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

So intense was the severity of his takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was almost an after-thought.

Twenty years after his departure from the club, and after a large part of his recent life was given over to an continuous series of appearances and the performance of all his old hits at Celtic, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, he has been eager to get a new position. He will view this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? It seems unlikely. Celtic could possibly reach out to contact their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - as surreal as it is - can be set aside because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way the shareholder described Rodgers.

This constituted a full-blooded endeavor at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, deceptive and unjustifiable. "One individual's desire for self-preservation at the expense of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For a person who prizes propriety and places great store in business being done with confidentiality, if not outright privacy, here was another example of how abnormal situations have become at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's dominant presence, operates in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to make all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He never participate in team AGMs, dispatching his offspring, his son, 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 rare moment to support the club with private messages to media organisations, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's just what he contradicted when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

The official line from the team is that he resigned, but reviewing his invective, carefully, one must question why did he allow it to reach this far down the line?

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

He has accused him of distorting information in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his statements "played a part to a toxic environment around the club and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the management and the directors. A portion of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been completely unjustified and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Ambition Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Once More'

Looking back to better times, they were tight, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at all opportunities, expressed gratitude to him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to nobody else.

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

It was the most controversial hiring, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the return of the unapologetic figure, who left them in the difficulty for Leicester.

The shareholder had his support. Over time, the manager turned on the persuasion, achieved the victories and the honors, and an fragile truce with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

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

It happened in his initial tenure and it transpired again, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the slow way Celtic went about their transfer business, the interminable waiting for prospects to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he spoke about the necessity for what he called "flexibility" in the transfer window. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club splurged record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant further acquisition - all of whom have performed well so far, with Idah since having left - Rodgers demanded more and more and, often, he expressed this in openly.

He planted a controversy about a internal disunity inside the team and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his subsequent media briefing he would typically minimize it and nearly contradict what he said.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was playing a risky strategy.

Earlier this year there was a story in a newspaper that allegedly originated from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his exit strategy.

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

The fans were angered. 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 bring success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person 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 people above him.

The regular {gripes