The Way Unrecoverable Breakdown Led to a Savage Parting for Rodgers & Celtic FC

Just fifteen minutes following the club released the announcement of their manager's shock resignation via a perfunctory short communication, the howitzer arrived, from the major shareholder, with clear signs in obvious anger.

In 551-words, key investor Dermot Desmond savaged his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when their rivals were getting uppity in that period and needed putting in their place. And the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou departed to another club in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his critique, the astonishing comeback of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at Celtic, O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a time. Considering things he has said recently, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this one as the perfect chance, a gift from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such success and adulation.

Would he give it up readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out Postecoglou, but O'Neill will act as a soothing presence for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Character Assassination

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be set aside because the most significant 'wow!' moment was the brutal way Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a branding of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the cost of everyone else," stated Desmond.

For somebody who prizes decorum and sets high importance in dealings being conducted with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was a further example of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the organization's most powerful presence, operates in the margins. The remote leader, the one with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, does media talks about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's wanted it to be. And it's exactly what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on Monday.

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

If Rodgers is guilty of every one of the accusations that the shareholder is alleging he's responsible for, then it is reasonable to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has charged him of distorting information in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' statements "have contributed to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their families, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

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

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Model Once More'

Looking back to better days, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers praised Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan respected Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who took the criticism when his comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

It was the most controversial appointment, the return of the returning hero for some supporters or, as other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for another club.

Desmond had his back. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the victories and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition came in contact with the club's business model, though.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it transpired once more, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the sluggish process Celtic went about their transfer business, the endless delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was too often the situation as far as he was concerned.

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

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the costly Adam Idah and the £6m further acquisition - all of whom have cut it so far, with one already having left - the manager pushed for more and more and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He set a controversy about a internal disunity inside the club and then distanced himself. Upon questioning about his comments at his next news conference he would typically minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? No, no, all are united, he'd say. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous game.

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider associated with the organization. It said 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 present and he was engineering his exit, that was the tone of the story.

The fans were enraged. They then viewed him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not back his vision to achieve triumph.

The leak was damaging, of course, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned nothing further about it.

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

The frequent {gripes