Desmond’s evisceration of Brendan Rodgers has gifted him martyrdom in the eyes of Celtic fans. Desmond, in return, faces eternal damnation…

Today, I’m continuing to look back on the fall out from Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic resignation.

The article I’m looking at focuses on the character assassination Dermot Desmond unleashed on Brendan Rodgers only hours after he departed the club for the second time.

Rodgers had declared that he would have to be ’emptied’ if he left Celtic before the conclusion of his 3 year contract.

Well, Desmond emptied him alright, and then some.

I thought at the time that it was on own goal of epic proportions from Dermot Desmond.

As my article states, I also thought it would result in Rodgers becoming a martyr amongst the support.

It hasn’t quite come to that.

There are still factions amongst the support who hate Rodgers, and identify him as a self-serving egotist.

Suffice it to say, a lot of those are amongst the pro-board happy clapping faction.

Desmond definitely had the right idea in his mission to turn that section of the support fully against Rodgers.

He succeeded in that much.

As for the rest of us?

I guess a lot of us thought Brendan Rodgers would eventually tell his side of the story.

We’re still waiting.

We might find something out in June when he returns to Glasgow for his evening with ACSOM.

We might not.

Whatever you say about Brendan Rodgers time at Celtic, and I mean both stints at the club, you cannot deny how much success he delivered.

11 out of 13 trophies.

But as we all know at Celtic, success is never rewarded in the way it should be.

Even Martin O’Neill has found that out to his detriment, although after yesterday’s self flagellation during his media conference, I’m beginning to wonder.

Dermot Desmond seems to have O’Neill in thrall.

Simply because O’Neill is happy to go along with domestic bliss and European ignominy.

Well, Brendan Rodgers hasn’t quite reached martyrdom status in the space of a year.

In the interim, interim of course being a very focal word at Celtic, Martin O’Neill had the chance to walk away a legend.

Instead, a year on from his return, he runs the risk of becoming a parody figure.

Especially when you look at his comments from yesterday.

Take a look at this story from a year ago, and see if it fits in with where we are today.

I said Desmond sought to make a clown out of Martin O’Neill back then.

Maybe I wasn’t too far wide of the mark with that comment?

They say that money is the root of all evil, and that certainly seems to be the case at Celtic at the moment.

The man who has the most of it at Celtic has overnight become the ultimate pantomime villain.

A figure who has divided the entire support and will now go down in infamy at the club after his actions on Monday night.

If he ever leaves Celtic Park, it’ll probably be one of the most celebrated days in the history of the club.

But I’m afraid the reality is that at 75, and taking into consideration the iron grip he seems to have on our club, the only likely event that will result in him leaving Celtic Park is his passing.

I don’t mean that in a derogatory or derisory way, I mean that it’s just a fact.

Desmond has no intention of releasing our club from his vice-like grip, and considering his age, he will probably remain in control at Celtic until the day he dies.

Even when that day comes, which it will, as it comes to us all, he will most likely pass control onto his son Ross.

Ross is a keen golfer like his father, so his way of operating probably won’t be much different to his father’s.

Effectively, it will just be a changing of the guard.

But in the eyes of Celtic fans, Monday the 27th of October will be a day that goes down in infamy.

A day where Desmond inadvertently made Brendan Rodgers a martyr, and himself, probably one of the most hated figures in Celtic’s history.

He faces eternal damnation amongst the majority of Celtic fans.

It would appear that since Monday, the gloves are off.

Nobody cares anymore what they say about Desmond, and I include myself in that.

Listening to podcasts, reading fan media, and in some cases, even the mainstream media, Desmond is now despised.

He might not have been liked before, but Monday night certainly took it to another level.

I doubt he even cares in the slightest.

When you’re a billionaire, you live in your own bubble, and you elevate yourself above us mere mortals.

Money buys you everything you could possibly need in life, in some cases, it even puts you above the law.

And if we’re being honest here, Desmond is law unto himself at Celtic, as we’ve clearly learned over the past couple of days.

However, despite the fact he may not care about the reaction his deranged statement on Monday night brought about, I sincerely doubt he imagined it would make a martyr out of Brendan Rodgers.

There is no way that was his intention, judging by it’s contents anyway.

Nonetheless, it has.

But in the wake of that disaster, Desmond is now filling the first team coaching ranks at the club with friends of the man, and those clearly sympathetic to his cause.

Another statement from the club this morning has informed us that Stephen McManus has now joined the coaching team.

McManus has achieved the square root of f*** all as coach of the Celtic B team, but evidently, that amounts to enough to become a first team coach.

Whereas the man who delivered 11 major trophies during his time at the club is the guy who’s most at fault for the disastrous position Celtic finds itself in now?

Go figure.

Desmond is not intent on satisfying the people who support Celtic with his appointments.

He is only intent on satisfying himself, which flies in the face of his statement that Celtic is greater than any one person.

And obviously, rewarding those loyal to him.

Otherwise, we would not have seen Martin O’Neill appointed as interim manager.

Ultimately O’Neill is Desmond’s choice, nobody else’s.

I can pretty much guarantee you that not one single Celtic fan out there would have thought of Martin O’Neill as the man sort out the current mess at Celtic.

In fact, nobody with any kind of football brain would have come up with that name.

But Dermot Desmond did, and that shows the frightening control he exerts over our club, along with the staggering lack of footballing awareness he has.

It also shows how helpless the rest of us are while he exerts that control.

Desmond thinks that a man, whose tactics might have worked 20 years ago, can implement similar tactics today, and solve all of our on-field problems.

I guess we’ll see how that pans out tonight against Falkirk, won’t we?

But this is Desmond in a nutshell.

While inadvertently making a martyr out of Brendan Rodgers, he seeks to make a clown out of Martin O’Neill.

O’Neill, if he’d had any sense, would have run a mile from this.

Because let’s be honest here, who really thinks that Mark Fotheringham and Stephen McManus can bring anything to the current coaching set up at the club?

Are the players really going to respect the opinions and the guidance of a guy who couldn’t even cut it with the Celtic B team?

I guess Colby Donovan and Dane Murray will be delighted to see him, yeah?

“A couple of days ago we had Brendan Rodgers and John Kennedy, now we’ve got an OAP who reckons we’re dugshite in comparison to Hearts and Big Mick again, exciting times ahead!”

On the subject of John Kennedy, by his actions, he also martyred himself.

Because his resignation, which we discussed on the Trinity Tims last night, speaks volumes.

It tells us that a man who has 27 years of service with the club did not agree with the way the manager was treated.

You don’t flush a career of 27 years down the toilet without good reason.

You don’t walk away from an institution you dearly love, unless that institution has upset you in a deeply irreparable way.

But this is what Dermot Desmond does, and he doesn’t care about the collateral damage.

He doesn’t care about the reputational damage he causes to the club by his actions.

Because at the end of the day it’s all about him.

Celtic, is indeed, greater than any one person.

But not Dermot Desmond, apparently.

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