Rodgers didn’t torch the place. He just refused to pretend it wasn’t already burning | OneFootball

You know, the only people happy with that fiasco, is the currently marginally less chaotic mob over at Ibrox! That statement. We’d be laughing our heads off if they came out with that. Just in case we thought they had a handle on things, just when we need reassurance, they pour petrol on the fire. What a mess! Ignore me. I’m still convinced I’m actually hallucinating all this….

Brendan Rodgers, Manager of Celtic, greets Jurgen Saumel, Head Coach of Sturm Graz prior to the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 League Phase MD3 match between Celtic FC and SK Sturm Graz at Celtic Park on October 23, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

It’s the same story, isn’t it? Brendan Rodgers, The Sequel…

One day, Brendan Rodgers is the golden child, the architect of domestic domination, the man who brought respectability back to Celtic in Europe. The next, he’s the pantomime villain, the snake in the grass, the ego that poisoned the well.

That’s the bedtime story the largest Celtic shareholder was reading to the support last night, “Once upon a time, there was a bad man who broke his promises and made everyone sad.”

Brendan Rodgers talks to the media after the match. Hearts v Celtic, 26 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

And somewhere in a wood-panelled office, an unfortunate PR intern goes against everything they’d learned over four years of an expensive education and hits send on a statement, one so drenched in self-preservation it probably should have been wrapped in cling film.

But that’s not the truth is it? That’s the cover story…

The real story, the one with sweat and cigarette ash on the pages, is this, the so-called toxicity didn’t start with Brendan Rodgers. It started when he had the temerity to suggest that Celtic act like a serious football club again, not a family-run nostalgia project with a spreadsheet fetish, and crucially he also gave us plebs a peek behind the curtain.

Brendan Rodgers. Dundee v Celtic. 19 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

You could smell this weeks ago, months ago even, that faint but unmistakable whiff of fear coming from the executive floor. Rodgers was asking questions they didn’t want to answer. Questions about modernisation, control, and ambition. The kind of questions that make men who sit on the Celtic board sweat through their golf shirts and corduroys.

So, they did what the board always do. They briefed. They leaked. They weaponised, “sources close to the club.” And they built their story brick by brick, Rodgers the egotist. Rodgers the disruptor. Rodgers the problem.

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Meanwhile, the house was already on fire…

And when the smoke clears, look who’s left standing beside him. Not just one or two loyal lieutenants, but nearly the entire backroom staff, men who could have stayed, men who should have stayed, if this was just one man’s vanity project gone wrong.

Gavin Strachan, First Team Coach of Celtic, looks on prior to the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Celtic FC and Heart of Midlothian at Celtic Park on March 08, 2023. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

But they didn’t. They packed their bags, tipped their caps to an illuminated Celtic Park, and walked out in lockstep. Every one of them, bar Stevie Woods and Gordon Strachan’s laddie. That’s not insubordination, that’s solidarity. That’s a quiet, but nonetheless public, mutiny against the corporate farce masquerading as leadership.

And it blows the whole anti-Rodgers fairytale to pieces, doesn’t it? Because if the man was genuinely the baddie, really the problem, why would so many professionals choose him over the so-called institution?

Here it is, stripped of spin and sanctimony, Brendan Rodgers didn’t break Celtic. Celtic broke Brendan Rodgers.

They drained him dry with politics, committees, and control-freakery dressed up as prudence. They smothered innovation under the weight of their own self-importance. And when the inevitable fracture came, they did what they always do, blamed the one man who dared to ask for more than mediocrity.

Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 Dermot Desmond and Thorbjorn Olesen DEN winners of the team event receiving there silver salvour from Peter Dawson Alfred Dunhill Links Trust after the final round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 on the Old Course at St. Andrews Golf CLub, Fife, Scotland. 06/10/2024. Picture Fran Caffrey / Golffile.ie

Dermot Desmond’s ‘clarity’ statement wasn’t leadership. It was an act of survival, a frantic scramble to get his ‘truth’ out first, while the ship listed to one side. The irony is biblical, the man accusing Rodgers of self-interest has built an empire on exactly that.

And as for the rest of them?

Mute Michael, the CEO who speaks to no one, probably – in my imagination anyway – curled up in a toilet cubicle, shoes pulled up onto the seat, aiming to reach his chin, whispering through his tears, “I cannae dae it.” when he’s asked to write a statement. ‘You don’t need to go on the telly Michael, just a wee statement’. ‘

Ye telt me that last time, I’m no daein it’.

Michael Nicholson, Celtic CEO and Chris McKay, Celtic CFO, look on from the stands during the UEFA Europa League 2025/26 League Phase MD3 match between Celtic FC and SK Sturm Graz at Celtic Park on October 23, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Chris McKay, his plucky sidekick, the Scrappy-Doo, to Michael’s Haven’t got a Scooby, of the boardroom, pounding his wee chest, shouting “let me at ’em, Mr. Desmond!” before being promptly locked in a box alongside some equally angry frogs.

Meanwhile, Dick Dastardly himself twirls his moustache, smirks at his reflection, and considers the new PR team’s request to put to “put something reassuring out for the shareholders.”

But reassurance isn’t in the Celtic playbook anymore. Instead, Dick takes a deep breath, and whispers, “Hold my nine-iron kid. I got this.”

Peter Lawwell, Michael Nicholson and Chris McKay applaud during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Livingston at Celtic Park on August 23, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

What follows is a statement so self-owning, so catastrophically tone-deaf, that if it came from across the city we’d already have popcorn in the microwave and beers chilling in the fridge.

So here we are again, standing in the ruins of another fairytale gone sour, being told to believe that the villain’s mask fits perfectly this time. But peel it back, and what do you see? A club too proud, or blissfully unaware, to admit it’s lost its way. A leadership too terrified to modernise. And a support being treated like extras in someone else’s cringeworthy pantomime.

The truth is out there, somewhere, but it’s buried under a mountain of PR spin and executive cowardice.

Brendan Rodgers with the Premier Sports Cup after Celtic’s victory over theRangers on 15 December 2024 at Hampden Park. Photo Kenny Ramsay

Rodgers didn’t torch the place. He just refused to keep pretending it wasn’t already burning.

Niall J

Invincible by Matt Corr. The story of Brendan Rodgers’s first season as Celtic manager. Click on cover to order …

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