26th October 2025; Tynecastle Park, Edinburgh, Scotland: Scottish Premiership Football, Hearts versus Celtic; Celtic Manager Brendan Rodgers speaks during the press conference after the match
Keith Jackson has claimed that from communications with Brendan Rodgers on the evening of October 27 last year there was no intention from him to resign.
At 9.44 pm that night Celtic announced:
Celtic Football Club can confirm that football manager Brendan Rodgers has today tendered his resignation. It has been accepted by the Club and Brendan will leave his role with immediate effect.
That announcement was quickly followed by an incredible statement from Dermot Desmond. To say that it was brimming with anger would be an understatement.
Rodgers resigning was big news but it was quickly overtaken by the statement from Desmond on the Celtic website.
Supporters waited to hear Rodgers’ reaction to what most viewed as a character assassination.
There was no statement through the League Managers Association.
On December 16 Saudi club Al Qadsiah announced Rodgers as their new manager. At the media conference to introduce Rodgers there was only the vaguest of mentions of Celtic with no detail on his departure.
It has widely been accepted that Rodgers resigned with eight months left on his contract.
Tonight on the Record Hotline Podcast Jackson disputed that.
As Michael Gannon ran through the timeline of events a year ago his Record colleague Jackson was offering an alternative version of events.
https://youtu.be/ZCRFHH3STmI?list=TLGGAbTUrQHAj6IyNjEwMjAyNg
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH RODGERS CELTIC DEPARTURE
GANNON: The chat that Monday wasn’t just of him quitting it was of him getting sacked. That afternoon, the afternoon that he quit we were all running about trying to see if he had been sacked.
Then the news comes out, that the jungle drums are beating that actually, no, he’s actually resigned. He had said ‘no,no,no I’m offski’.
JACKSON: I’d heard, I’m still not entirely sure about that Mick to be perfectly honest.
GANNON: Jacko, he walked away without a pay off. He could have sat tight and taken the money but he walked away without a pay-off. Which is why Celtic also think that he was already on his way out the door. He had a lot of money that he left on the table at Celtic. A lot of money
JACKSON: Well that very evening Mick I was in a communication with him. And at that point, and it was early evening, Brendan Rodgers wasn’t aware that he was about to resign, or be resigned
GANNON: I spoke to him (Rodgers) I was in communication with him over that period. Especially the morning after it was ‘enough is enough’. Him and Dermot had come to a point.
JACKSON: Something happened that night. Something happened that night. You can only speculate but it’s fairly safe ground to think that it involved a conversation between Brendan Rodgers and Dermot.
And however that decision went it was then decided that a resignation would have to follow.
THE CELTIC FALL OUT
Jackson was thought to have been one of the reporters closest to Rodgers during his first stint at Celtic.
In February 2024 that image was trashed.
After an off the record discussion with reporters from daily papers Jackson decided to splash details of a confidential discussion across the pages of the Record.
Rodgers was believed to be furious. From that point onwards he called off separate media conferences for daily and Sunday papers.
Newspaper reporters attended the broadcast conferences which were uploaded to You Tube within an hour of finishing.
Gone was the embargoed content, exclusive to newspapers. All because Jackson had published details from an off the record briefing.
Under Martin O’Neill and Wilfried Nancy the separate newspaper conferences have been restored.
