Welcome to Celtic does Dystopia – It’s enough to make you greet | OneFootball

It’s happened again. Brendan Rodgers has left the building. The second coming is over, and the circus tent is on fire…

Former Celtic manager Martin O’Neill walks up towards the stadium with the SPL trophy during the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Aberdeen at Celtic Park Stadium on May 24, 2023. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Martin O’Neill’s back from the wilderness, Shaun Maloney’s in charge of the cones, and somewhere in the background you can almost hear the laughter track voiced by our boardroom.

If Charlie Brooker ever ran out of ideas for Black Mirror, he could just point a camera at Celtic Park and let nature take its course. No need for CGI, the reality’s bleak enough.

Rodgers, the man of percentages, 150%, then 200% staying power, finally hit 0%. Self-emptied. Jumped before he was pushed? Maybe the golf courses of Surrey are calling, maybe Wolverhampton seems more appealing right now, maybe the boardroom daggers got too sharp. Who knows. But there’s a certain deja vu nausea about the whole thing, deja vu mixed with indigestion.

Callum McGregor shakes hands with Brendan Rodgers. Hearts v Celtic, 26 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The football, where do you start? Grim results, limp performances, an eight-point chasm to Hearts in October. A sacking offence in most civilised football nations. But at Celtic? We prefer the slow drip of chaos over the clean cut of accountability.

Then came the statements. The official one was bland enough to lull a toddler to sleep, “thanks for everything, Brendan, all the best.” You could hear the PR intern clicking “send” with quiet satisfaction. Job done. Minimal disruption. But then, like a ghost emerging from the fog of the K Club fairways, Dermot Desmond spoke.

And what a sermon it was.

Celtic Manager Brendan Rodgers, Dundee v Celtic. Dens Park, Dundee, 19 October 2025. Photo Stuart WallaceIMAGO / Shutterstock

He rolled out a character assassination, barely attempting to wrap it in corporate civility. Every line dripped with wounded ego and just enough passive aggression to make you choke on your Ovaltine. “Divisive.” “Misleading.” “Self-serving.” It was less a farewell and more a mob hit dressed in Callaway golf gear. You half expected the statement to end with, “ Just leave the keys and the laptop at reception, Brendan, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out”.

Peter Lawwell, Chairman of Celtic, Dermot Desmond, Non-Executive Director of Celtic, and Michael Nicholson, CEO of Celtic, are seen in attendance prior to the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and theRangers at Celtic Park on March 16, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

But here’s the thing, even if half of what Desmond said was true, it doesn’t matter. Because we’ve seen this play before. Rodgers vs. The Suits, round two. Same plot, same villains, same ending. The club learned nothing, forgot everything, and pressed replay on the destruction reel.

Celtic are a paradox right now, ancient and aimless, rich and reactive, loud but leaderless. We’ve got a billionaire owner who appears once every blue moon, a CEO nobody hears from and less trust, and a recruitment strategy that feels like it was designed by a random number generator.

The Celtic support at Tynecastle. Hearts v Celtic, 26 October 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The Celtic fans are not daft. We can all smell the rot, even through the perfume of press releases and shareholder waffle. We’ve seen this board weaponise silence for decades, and when they do speak, it’s actually worse. It’s like they learned PR from a Kim Jong Un Ted Talk.

If Desmond’s statement was supposed to restore order, it instead set fire to the curtains.

You have to wonder, was this Desmond’s move to get his version out before Rodgers drops his own Netflix monologue? Because it sure read like a man clearing his throat before the lawyers get involved. NDA? What NDA? Just blast it all out there, let the lawyers deal with the ashes later.

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

And now everyone’s waiting for Rodgers to respond. Maybe he will, because he loves a stage. But if he does, it’ll be pathetic, two grown men, lobbing statements like teenagers snap chatting each other over some playground spat, while the club crumbles behind them. Can we please get some adults in the room? Preferably ones who’ve mastered some social skills.

But if we can get past the melodrama, we understand Celtic’s deeper sickness is institutional. We’re a club run on nostalgia, micro-managed by men who still think data means the secretary’s spreadsheet. It’s time to modernise yet we’re being told the old boys network have a plan. The same plan that is.

We need fresh blood on the board, a Director of Football with authority, not a glorified scout, Executives who understand 2025, not 1995, new intellectual investment, real ambition, and a plan beyond ‘one point ahead of them’. What we’re being told however is expect more of the same, but we’ve brought in a support cast from the Seville era.

Because right now, Celtic are an empire of contradictions, a global club acting like a corner shop, a fanbase almost screaming for vision, and a boardroom that thinks vision means another round of PowerPoint slides.

Rodgers walks away again. Desmond descends from his golfing Olympus to lecture the peasants, and the supporters, left in the middle, are told to trust the process, the same process that produced this dystopian drama.

Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 Dermot Desmond on the 18th tee during the final round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship 2024 on the Old Course at St. Andrews Golf CLub, Fife, . 06/10/2024. Picture Fran Caffrey / Golffile.ie

But we don’t trust them. Not anymore. The whole thing feels like a fever dream we can’t wake up from, the same names, the same excuses, the same slow erosion of what this club could be.

Somewhere in another timeline, Celtic are modern, ambitious and united. In this one, it’s Black Mirror, Parkhead Edition. And unless something changes soon, we’ll keep watching the rerun, wondering when, or if, some adults will finally show up and switch off the telly.

Niall J

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Don’t miss the chance to purchase the late, great Celtic historian David Potter’s final book. All remaining copies have been signed by the legendary Celtic captain  Danny McGrain PLUS you’ll also receive a FREE copy of David Potter’s Willie Fernie biography – Putting on the Style, and you’ll only be charged for postage on one book.  Order from Celtic Star Books HERE.

Celtic in the Eighties and Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style both by David Potter. Photo The Celtic Star

Danny McGrain signing copies of Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Photo: Celtic Star Books

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