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Just fifteen minutes after the club issued the announcement of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory short statement, the bombshell landed, from the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in obvious fury.

Through an extensive statement, major shareholder Dermot Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

This individual he persuaded to join the club when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and required being in their place. And the figure he again turned to after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

Such was the ferocity of Desmond's critique, the jaw-dropping comeback of the former boss was practically an after-thought.

Twenty years after his exit from the organization, and after a large part of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of public speaking engagements and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

For now - and perhaps for a time. Based on things he has said lately, he has been eager to secure a new position. He will see this one as the ultimate chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the environment where he experienced such glory and adulation.

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

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

The new manager's return - as surreal as it may be - can be set aside because the biggest 'wow!' moment was the harsh manner Desmond wrote of Rodgers.

This constituted a forceful endeavor at defamation, a labeling of Rodgers as deceitful, a perpetrator of untruths, a disseminator of falsehoods; divisive, deceptive and unacceptable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

For somebody who values decorum and sets high importance in business being done with discretion, if not outright privacy, here was another illustration of how unusual situations have grown at Celtic.

The major figure, the organization's most powerful figure, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the responsibility of justifying them in any public forum.

He never attend team annual meetings, dispatching his offspring, Ross, instead. He seldom, if ever, does interviews about Celtic unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to defend the organization with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in the open.

It's exactly how he's preferred it to remain. And it's just what he went against when going all-out attack on the manager on that day.

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

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is claiming he's guilty of, then it's fair to ask why had been the manager not removed?

He has charged him of distorting things in public that were inconsistent with reality.

He claims his words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and encouraged hostility towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Such an remarkable allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Ambition Clashed with Celtic's Model Again

Looking back to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager praised the shareholder at every turn, expressed gratitude to him every chance. Brendan respected him and, really, to no one other.

It was the figure who took the criticism when his returned happened, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have described it, the arrival of the shameless one, who left them in the lurch for Leicester.

The shareholder had his back. Gradually, Rodgers employed the charm, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile peace with the supporters became a affectionate relationship again.

It was inevitable - consistently - going to be a moment when his ambition came in contact with Celtic's operational approach, however.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with added intensity, recently. Rodgers spoke openly about the slow way the team conducted their player acquisitions, the interminable delay for targets to be landed, then not landed, as was frequently the situation as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the necessity for what he termed "flexibility" in the market. The fans agreed with him.

Despite the organization splurged record amounts of money in a twelve-month period on the expensive one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with Idah since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in openly.

He planted a bomb about a lack of cohesion within the team and then walked away. When asked about his comments at his next media briefing he would typically downplay it and almost reverse what he stated.

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

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly came from a insider close to the organization. It claimed that Rodgers was damaging the team with his public outbursts and that his true aim was managing his departure plan.

He desired not to be present and he was engineering his exit, that was the implication of the story.

The fans were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors did not support his vision to achieve success.

The leak was poisonous, naturally, and it was intended to hurt Rodgers, which it accomplished. He demanded for an investigation and for the guilty person to be dismissed. Whether there was a examination then we learned nothing further about it.

By then it was plain Rodgers was shedding the support of the individuals above him.

The regular {gripes