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Merely fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of their manager's surprising departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, major shareholder Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the club when Rangers were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting back in a box. And the man he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the severity of his takedown, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his recent life was dedicated to an unending series of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the manager's seat.

For now - and maybe for a while. Based on things he has expressed lately, he has been keen to secure another job. He will see this role as the perfect opportunity, a gift from the Celtic Gods, a homecoming to the place where he experienced such glory and adulation.

Will he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club could possibly reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the moment.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's reappearance - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking development was the brutal way the shareholder wrote of Rodgers.

It was a forceful attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as deceitful, a perpetrator of falsehoods, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "One individual's desire for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

For a person who values propriety and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not complete privacy, this was another illustration of how abnormal things have grown at Celtic.

Desmond, the club's most powerful presence, moves in the margins. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of explaining them in any open setting.

He does not participate in team AGMs, sending his son, his son, instead. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews about Celtic unless they're glowing in nature. And still, he's reluctant to communicate.

There have been instances on an rare moment to support the club with private messages to news outlets, but no statement is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to remain. And that's exactly what he contradicted when going all-out attack on Rodgers on Monday.

The directive from the team is that Rodgers resigned, but reading Desmond's criticism, carefully, one must question why he allow it to reach such a critical point?

If Rodgers is culpable of every one of the things that Desmond is alleging he's guilty of, then it is reasonable to inquire why was the coach not dismissed?

Desmond has charged him of spinning things in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims his statements "have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and encouraged hostility towards members of the executive team and the directors. Some of the criticism aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unjustified and improper."

What an remarkable allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we speak.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Clashed with the Club's Model Again

Looking back to better times, they were close, Dermot and Brendan. The manager lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him whenever possible. Brendan deferred to Dermot and, really, to no one other.

This was Desmond who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most divisive hiring, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other supporters would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had his support. Gradually, the manager turned on the charm, achieved the victories and the trophies, and an uneasy truce with the supporters turned into a love-in once more.

It was inevitable - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with the club's operational approach, however.

It happened in his first incarnation and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers spoke openly about the sluggish way Celtic went about their player acquisitions, the endless waiting for targets to be secured, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Time and again he stated about the necessity for what he termed "agility" in the transfer window. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the organization splurged unprecedented sums of money in a calendar year on the £11m Arne Engels, the £9m another player and the £6m Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with Idah already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it 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 usually minimize it and almost reverse what he stated.

Lack of cohesion? Not at all, everybody is aligned, he'd say. It appeared like he was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

Earlier this year there was a report in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the club. It claimed that the manager was harming the team with his open criticisms and that his true aim was orchestrating his departure plan.

He didn't want to be present and he was arranging his exit, that was the tone of the article.

The fans were angered. They now viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his board members did not support his plans to achieve triumph.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt him, which it accomplished. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be removed. Whether there was a probe then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was losing the backing of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes