Posing the question to Hannah, Kieran the Celtic fan said: “The article said club sources blamed Rodgers for paving the way for his exit and that senior figures were in disagreement with him. Do you still stand by that article?”
Hannah replied: “Yes. I stand by that article.”
Hannah noted that both Rodgers and Nicholson had later described the situation as “done,” but the caller remained unconvinced, responding: “There are people within the club who’ve got no respect for the way Rodgers operates. They’ll stop at nothing to undermine him.”
It’s just another sorry episode exemplifying how out of touch the board are with supporters’ interests. It will be interesting to hear Brendan Rodgers’ thoughts on whether he believes the club handled the internal investigation correctly.
Michael Nicholson is an experienced solicitor and will understand the complexities of looking at any legal action against a journalist who would always protect his sources. The tensions between Brendan Rodgers and senior board members at Celtic are nothing new, indeed that was the exact reason he left Celtic to join Leicester.
The briefing against the Celtic manager has been ongoing, pretty much since the day he returned, with a compliant Celtic blogger regularly making (increasingly bizarre) digs at Rodgers, presumably after being briefed by his lord and master.
Actually legal action would achieve nothing but had there been a fan advisory board in place then that certainly could make an impact on these type of situations going forward.
As the manager of Celtic Brendan Rodgers was justified in calling for investment in the team to help the club continue to develop in Europe after the encouraging campaign in the Champions League last season. His warnings were not heeded and his remarks were seen as him not being an executive team player, thus the story appearing in the Sun.
Briefings like this are nothing new and supporters who wouldn’t be too upset to see Brendan Rodgers leave at the end of the season should maybe consider that his replacement will almost certainly be an executive team player rather than a manager pushing for Celtic to be the best possible version of ourselves and to have realistic chances of being a consistently competitive team in the Champions League.
The one matter that wasn’t raised by the Celtic supporters at Monday night’s meeting was whether the club had progressed with their discussions from over the summer with Brendan Rodgers regarding a new contract.
The day before the Hibs match a few weeks ago The Celtic Star asked Rodgers at the end of his media conference if there was any developments on this and he said there was nothing new to report.
Conor Spence
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