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Just a quarter of an hour after the club issued the news of Brendan Rodgers' shock resignation via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell landed, courtesy of the major shareholder, with whiskers twitching in apparent fury.

Through 551-words, key investor Desmond eviscerated his old chum.

This individual he convinced to join the team when their rivals were gaining ground in 2016 and needed putting in their place. Plus the figure he again relied on after Ange Postecoglou left for Tottenham in the summer of 2023.

So intense was the severity of Desmond's takedown, the astonishing return of Martin O'Neill was practically an secondary note.

Two decades after his exit from the organization, and after much of his latter years was dedicated to an unending circuit of appearances and the performance of all his past successes at the team, O'Neill is returned in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Based on comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to secure another job. He'll see this role as the ultimate opportunity, a present from the Celtic Gods, a return to the environment where he experienced such success and praise.

Would he give it up easily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well make a call to contact Postecoglou, but the new appointment will act as a balm for the time being.

'Full-blooded Effort at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the harsh manner the shareholder described Rodgers.

It was a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a source of falsehoods, a spreader of falsehoods; divisive, misleading and unjustifiable. "One individual's wish for self-interest at the expense of everyone else," wrote he.

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

The major figure, the club's dominant presence, moves in the background. The absentee totem, the one with the authority to take all the important decisions he wants without having the obligation of explaining them in any public forum.

He does not attend team AGMs, sending his son, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about the team unless they're hagiographic in tone. And even then, he's slow to communicate.

He has been known on an occasion or two to support the organization with private messages to news outlets, but nothing is heard in public.

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

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

Assuming the manager is culpable 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 dismissed?

He has accused him of distorting information in public that did not tally with reality.

He claims Rodgers' words "have contributed to a hostile atmosphere around the team and encouraged animosity 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 improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, indeed. Lawyers might be preparing as we discuss.

His Ambition Conflicted with Celtic's Model Once More'

To return to happier days, they were close, the two men. The manager lauded the shareholder at every turn, thanked him whenever possible. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

It was the figure who drew the heat when his returned occurred, after the previous manager.

This marked the most controversial hiring, the return of the prodigal son for a few or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the return of the shameless one, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' back. Over time, Rodgers turned on the charm, achieved the wins and the honors, and an uneasy truce with the supporters became a love-in again.

There was always - always - going to be a point when his ambition came in contact with the club's business model, however.

This occurred in his initial tenure and it happened once more, with bells on, over the last year. He publicly commented about the sluggish process the team went about their transfer business, the interminable delay for prospects to be secured, then missed, as was frequently the case as far as he was concerned.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he termed "agility" in the market. Supporters concurred with him.

Even when the club spent unprecedented sums of funds in a calendar year on the expensive Arne Engels, the costly another player and the significant Auston Trusty - all of whom have performed well to date, with one already having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, oftentimes, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion inside the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his comments at his subsequent news conference he would usually downplay it and nearly reverse what he said.

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

A few months back there was a story in a publication that purportedly originated from a insider close to the organization. It said that the manager was harming Celtic 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 saw him as similar to a martyr who might be carried out on his honor because his directors wouldn't support his plans to achieve success.

This disclosure was poisonous, naturally, and it was meant to harm Rodgers, which it did. He demanded for an inquiry and for the guilty person to be dismissed. If there was a examination then we learned no more about it.

By then it was plain the manager was shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The regular {gripes