Statement from Dermot Desmond to Celtic Supporters

I'd rather Summer 24 than Summer 25.

 

Been a long day trying to process this * show.

Is Rodgers a self serving egotistical maniac? Probably.

Is he to blame for the current mess? Absolutely not.

Attempting to pin the blame on one person is a weak attempt at a cover up.

The failings at Celtic go way beyond Rodgers current spell. 5x different managers over the last 15 years have called out the Boards transfer policy and cited the lack of urgency to get deals done on time.

We’ve repeatedly failed to qualify for the CL via the qualification rounds, under various managers, because we fail to prepare every time. The common theme is Desmond, Lawwell and the rest of the rats.

The worst thing is they’ll not concede any responsibility for it.

Now is the time to ramp up the pressure and force change.

 

to be fair ,rodgers maybe called lawwells son a dopey * a time or two

 

Desmond’s statement has disappeared from Celtic’s twitter now.

 

Even I didn’t think the hoax would get to this stage. That statement is the epitome of propaganda and Desmond obviously thinks we’re daft enough to lap it up.

As crooked as his own old grey tache.

It’s the ULTIMATE act of self preservation. Never seen anything like it before. They are feeling the pressure and should be hanging by a thread.

 

That list of managers shows its time up for this board and are holding the club back and showing it's true potential if we have a ambitious board in place and enough is enough with this lot .

 

It’s the managers fault remember


The Celtic board are wonderful hardworking Celtic men with the best intentions

 

That moustachioed * is deeply mistaken if he thinks BR going will take the heat of the plc…

Supporters have constantly directed anger at ‘the board’ and at Nicholson and PL on the whole…. Not the golfing absentee landlord..

I’ve banged on about it for months… but it’s always been him that we need gone from the club.. the rest will sort itself out.

 

Is it this 5 year plan * that is * things up, like they have a budget for 5 years and bonuses are tied to it then when it's year 3 or 4 the boardroom goes into full meltdown that they are approaching a failure and loss of bonuses ?

If you are buying players for a few million selling them 18 months for 3,4 or 5 or 10x that amount shouldn't you be relaxing about not meeting a 5 year arbitrary target because that huge player sale profit wipes out any negative balance.

Maeda should have been sold hatate should have been sold in summer who ever sabotaged the signing of players this summer for whatever reason meant we had to keep players that were good profit making saleable assets a and the price would likely be lower when we did sell them not to mention they'd be unhappy campers, and we make our big money qualification game harder by not getting in replacements for good players sold.

It feels to me like these boardroom guys haven't got the right skill set to do the jobs that modern professional football clubs need to do, so if they can't do the jobs then higher someone that can and finally fix this badly malfunctioning part of the club.
We continually shoot ourselves in the foot because these boardroom guys can't take the pressure and * it and their bottle crashes when the there's too much in comings and outgoings or maybe it's Desmond that shites it and pulls the plug, football clubs all over Europe manage this every season without it turning into a * show.

I know transfer fees are usually paid in installments and id imagine sometimes you might not get the full 20 Million for A sold player for a season or two maybe longer maybe a shorter period of time but that's all entered into accounts and I'm sure these transfer fees are insured meaning you get always get your money what part of the procedure are the getting hung up about, how come sometimes they allow a new manager to sign a load of players and then they turn stingy after selling and making huge profits and refuse to sanction a deal for a striker or right winger what the * is going on

 

you have to wonder if the protests and not another penny efforts are having the desired effect already .why desmond felt the need to rant about the division rodgers supposedly created and staunch defence of the board and 'transfer model' due to a manager resigning was over the top especially from the * who never utters a word from one footballing catasrophe to the next

 

He's never here anymore, so he's happy for his puppets to take any abuse from the stands. The warning signs were there last January, when Brendan once again publicly called for the club to be braver in the transfer market.

That statement has Lawwell all over it imo.

 

A lot of chat that Desmond wouldn't have put statement unless true or at minimum legally verified.

Why should we assume the truth part? Or even the legal?
Rodgers hasn't going to sue him, his might contradict him but take legal action - not a chance.
Either true or Legally verifiable doesn't stop Trump, Musk or other megalomaniac billionaires, so why not Desmond?

On a couple of examples, like....

'Rodgers has say in all transfers' - technically likely true, but if the conversation went like 'we've identified 2 wingers, we've got 24 hours left in window - you ok with that? - yes would have been anyone's response.

'Self serving' - yes, Rodgers is entitled to be 'self serving' if his only job is to improve the feckin team and others are deliberately getting in the way of that

'fuelled hostility' and 'divisive' - that is standard corporate speak for not toeing the part line.
But in the absence of a communicated party line or other communications from our silent directors and Rodgers being asked every day of his working life about ambition, transfer etc - should he lie?
And even if he indirectly 'fuelled hostility' he clearly didn't create it to start with
in the words of Billy Joel 'it was always burning'

Rodgers did have to go, no defense for him downing tools.
But the root cause of all of this is the competence and ambition of the board, in particular, the absent 'major shareholder' - we cannot be distracted from that reality.
STB

 

It reads to me like the only one acting in a mode of ‘self preservation’ is the absentee landlord…

I really really hope that BR is getting ‘lawyered-up’ and makes an unholy stink for him and his plc cronies.

 

The speed at which the announcement then the statement from Desmond, combined with announcing Martin O'Neil and Maloney and MON stating he had 10 mins to respond to Desmond, raises issues how in * name would Desmond have had the time to write that up, get it to a lawyer to run an eye over it then get it published?

Add to the overall thing that Rodgers and Desmond seemingly were pals and Rodgers was Desmond's man etc, then it looks more like they've had a major falling out on Monday around things - has Desmond called him Monday after the Hearts game asking about what's happening and what can be done to fix the form? Rodgers has snapped/got to the end of his tether and done "you and the others have * me, where's the actual backing you promised when I signed back up? You want me to win this league with X, Y and Z and you refused to get A, b or C?"
Heated debate and Desmond does the "well you don't need to stay here"
"You're right, * you Dermot I quit"

That would explain the heat in Desmond's statement, hot headed after being told to * off by Rodgers, pens that statement trying to defend himself against Rodgers accusations (that til this week ever single one of us agreed with Rodgers).

Would also go a way to explain the coaches walking out too, in support. Manager has a go at Desmond, the coaches think "* yeah, they need told, this is shocking" then hear how it panned out and think "guys a *, we aren't staying, hanging the manager out, let's support him"



Sent from my Pixel 9 Pro XL using Tapatalk

 

The statement has one purpose and that is to offload all current problems from the board to the now resigned manager.

It would not surprise me if Desmond offered BR and early out, paid, and with the caveat he takes the dairy.

That's maybe a bit far fetched but I do believe the Desmond sees this play as a perfect opportunity to sell that whopper to the “simpleton” fanbase.

Sadly, for the dinosaur. It's not 1980. We all have access to socials where such a statement gets picked to the bone.

 

The only hope i have is that the delusinal old * becomes so desperate to regain the fans support that he starts spending ridiculous amount of money. That he puts in piles of cash from his billions he own.

Would not surprise me actually. He would do anything to raise his ego again.

 

Yes please!!

 

The statement distorts so much of reality that it's almost utterly laughable.

“Every pound generated by the club is reinvested towards those goals and the continuous improvement of Celtic Football Club.”

A complete and utter lie. We have £78m sitting in the bank and we have paid over £20m in Tax during the last 3 years, alone. It's a complete and utter fabrication. That one sentence alone should have alarm bells ringing for every single person in here. There are also multiple times in the statement that are fabricated and the evidence doesn't add up.

He accuses Rodgers of lying about the contract situation.

"In June, both Michael Nicholson and I expressed to Brendan that we were keen to offer him a contract extension, to reaffirm the club’s full backing and long-term commitment to him. He said he would need to think about it and revert. Yet in subsequent press conferences, Brendan implied that the club had made no commitment to offer him a contract. That was simply untrue."

This again, is a complete fabrication of the truth. Brendan Rodgers said in a press conference in the summer, when asked about the contract situation that he had received no offer but there had been conversations. That's backed up by Desmond in his own * statement. Being keen to offer someone a contract is not the same as offering someone a contract. So, Desmond has distorted the truth, again. In no press conference I have seen from Rodgers, when asked about his contract situation, has he accused the club of not committing to him or not committing to offer him a new contract. The famous "I'm not here to maintain" press conference, he basically says exactly what Desmond does. It's just complete and utter * bullshit.

There's even this ridiculous narrative that Desmond is attempting to paint, that Rodgers, by wanting players of a certain quality in priority positions before important games (like I would say 99.9% of all managers want) was part of the toxicity that filtered from the stands towards the boardroom.

"Regrettably, his words and actions since then have been divisive, misleading, and self-serving. They have contributed to a toxic atmosphere around the club and fuelled hostility towards members of the executive team and the Board. Some of the abuse directed at them, and at their families, has been entirely unwarranted and unacceptable."

Nobody who is serious believes that family members should be targeted when it comes to the attempts to move * out of the boardroom. Absolutely never and Desmond is right to say that it is entirely unwarranted and unacceptable. However, trying to insinuate that Rodgers words were contributing to that toxicity is yet another fabrication of the truth. Celtic fans were not turning on the board because Brendan Rodgers wanted players for a £30m game in the qualifiers, they were turning on the board because every single one of us have seen this movie countless times before. The 3 final signings we did make, Tounetki, Balikwisha and Iheanacho could have been made before the game against Kairat. There was no reason not to * get these players signed and ready before we played that game. The only self-serving and misleading words have come from his statement.

Finally, this part, really * irritated me as well.

"In reality, he was given final say over all football matters and was consistently backed in the recruitment process — including record investment in players he personally identified and approved."

It seems to me, and I am guessing here, that he's likely talking about Engels, Idah and Trusty. Now, I don't think anyone would dispute that these were absolutely Brendan Rodgers signings. However, the fact that these became 'record signings' isn't down to anything other than the club waiting until the very end of the window to sign players and a consistent theme of lowballing selling clubs. There were many reports that Engels would have cost £8m in early July and that Idah had agreed a loan to buy deal with Genoa in the Janaury, before we swooped in, that was said to be worth £5m. So again, it's not on * Brendan Rodgers that these players became record signings. That's on the board.

But aye, must be loads else in that * statement that are true. Stupid * tached, *.

 

It’s hard to comprehend how some supporters think that’s our problems sorted now that Desmond has spoken and ‘outed’ Rodgers.

My immediate thought about 30 seconds into the statement was… ‘Well if this is all true, why wasn’t Rodgers sacked?’

It’s littered with lies.

Every penny is reinvested - lie.
Rodgers had final say over every transfer - lie.

The minutes from the recent Collective / Exec meeting also don’t align with the statement in terms of there being no wedge between the board and manager.

If anything Desmond has outed himself as the person who briefed against Rodgers in the press. Now who’s self-serving and divisive?

 

Was thinking this earlier, it makes total sense. I expect the board will be quiet now which will enrage fans even more. I'm still unsure whether BR will have his say in response any time soon. He could sell it in another one of his books rather than set the record straight here and now. Could be an agreement between Brendan and the one who actually had the conversation and ultimately 'sacked' him, while DD is another party who is getting involved due to his ego and bad reputation on the line. Either way it indicates internal problems and the fans are rightfully demanding a whole restructure at this stage. I just hope that the message is clear and the board continue to be held accountable by our fans.