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Just fifteen minutes following Celtic issued the news of their manager's shock departure via a perfunctory five-paragraph communication, the bombshell arrived, from Dermot Desmond, with clear signs in apparent anger.

In an extensive statement, key investor Desmond eviscerated his former ally.

The man he convinced to join the club when Rangers were getting uppity in that period and required being back in a box. And the figure he once more relied on after the previous manager left for Tottenham in the recent offseason.

So intense was the ferocity of his critique, the jaw-dropping return of Martin O'Neill was almost an secondary note.

Twenty years after his departure from the organization, and after much of his latter years was given over to an continuous circuit of public speaking engagements and the playing of all his past successes at the team, Martin O'Neill is back in the dugout.

Currently - and maybe for a while. Considering comments he has said recently, O'Neill has been eager to get another job. He'll view this role as the perfect chance, a present from the club's legacy, a return to the place where he enjoyed such glory and adulation.

Would he relinquish it readily? You wouldn't have thought so. The club might well reach out to sound out their ex-manager, but O'Neill will act as a balm for the time being.

All-out Attempt at Reputation Destruction'

O'Neill's return - however strange as it is - can be parked because the most significant shocking moment was the brutal way the shareholder described the former manager.

This constituted a full-blooded attempt at character assassination, a labeling of him as untrustful, a perpetrator of untruths, a spreader of misinformation; disruptive, misleading and unjustifiable. "A single person's wish for self-interest at the expense of others," stated he.

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

Desmond, the organization's most powerful figure, operates in the margins. The absentee totem, the individual with the power to make all the important calls he pleases without having the obligation of justifying them in any public forum.

He does not participate in club annual meetings, sending his offspring, Ross, in his place. He rarely, if ever, gives media talks about Celtic unless they're glowing in tone. And still, he's reluctant to speak out.

He has been known on an rare moment to defend the club with confidential messages to news outlets, but nothing is made in public.

This is precisely how he's preferred it to be. And that's exactly what he went against when going full thermonuclear on the manager on Monday.

The official line from the club is that Rodgers stepped down, but reading his invective, line by line, you have to wonder why did he permit it to reach such a critical point?

Assuming Rodgers is culpable of every one of the accusations that Desmond is alleging he's responsible for, then it's fair to inquire why had been the manager not removed?

Desmond has accused him of distorting things in open forums that did not tally with reality.

He says Rodgers' words "played a part to a toxic environment around the team and fuelled animosity towards individuals of the executive team and the board. Some of the abuse aimed at them, and at their loved ones, has been completely unwarranted and improper."

What an extraordinary allegation, that is. Lawyers might be mobilising as we discuss.

'Rodgers' Aspirations Conflicted with the Club's Strategy Again

Looking back to happier days, they were tight, Dermot and Brendan. Rodgers lauded Desmond at all opportunities, thanked him every chance. Rodgers deferred to him and, really, to nobody else.

This was the figure who drew the heat when Rodgers' comeback happened, post-Postecoglou.

This marked the most controversial appointment, the reappearance of the returning hero for some supporters or, as some other Celtic fans would have put it, the arrival of the unapologetic figure, who departed in the difficulty for another club.

The shareholder had Rodgers' support. Over time, the manager employed the persuasion, delivered the wins and the honors, and an fragile truce with the fans turned into a affectionate relationship once more.

There was always - always - going to be a moment when Rodgers' ambition clashed with Celtic's operational approach, though.

It happened in his initial tenure and it happened again, with added intensity, over the last year. Rodgers publicly commented about the slow way Celtic conducted their transfer business, the endless waiting for prospects to be landed, then missed, as was too often the case as far as he was believed.

Repeatedly he stated about the need for what he called "agility" in the market. The fans concurred with him.

Even when the club spent record amounts of funds in a calendar year on the £11m one signing, the £9m another player and the significant further acquisition - none of whom have cut it to date, with one since having departed - Rodgers demanded increased resources and, often, he did it in public.

He planted a controversy about a lack of cohesion within the club and then distanced himself. When asked about his remarks at his next media briefing he would usually downplay it and nearly contradict what he stated.

Internal issues? Not at all, all are united, he'd claim. It looked like Rodgers was engaging in a dangerous strategy.

A few months back there was a report in a newspaper that allegedly came from a source associated with the organization. It said that Rodgers was harming Celtic with his public outbursts and that his real motivation was orchestrating his exit strategy.

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

Supporters were angered. They then viewed him as akin to a martyr who might be carried out on his shield because his directors wouldn't back his vision to bring triumph.

This disclosure was damaging, naturally, and it was intended to harm him, which it accomplished. He called for an inquiry 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 shedding the support of the individuals in charge.

The frequent {gripes