After choosing to remain almost silent during the press conference organized at the Clermont-Ferrand football club, Helena Costa, who was to become the first woman to coach a French men’s professional club before giving up on Monday, ended up s explain in the press, Tuesday, June 24.
In a press release issued by The ballPortuguese sports daily, Helena Costa says that her decision was motivated by ” the lack of respect “ of the club towards him and “amateurism” of the organisation, in particular in his relations with the team’s sports director, Olivier Chavanon.
DISAGREEMENT ON RECRUITMENT
The main point of tension would have intervened around the choice of players selected and in particular, according to the Portuguese, the decision of the club to recruit players without its agreement. “It is unacceptable, inadmissible”she denounces, explaining that she learned of this arrival through a list of players to undergo medical tests.
In its Tuesday edition, The Team also claimed that Helena Costa might have come up once morest the lack of resources at the club, preventing it from bringing in the players it wanted to recruit.
“YOU ARE TIRING ME WITH YOUR TONS OF EMAILS”
However, the coach insists in her press release on the attitude of the club manager who would not have “did not respond to emails” and the messages she sent him on this subject, until finally retorting: “You tire me with your tons of emails, (…) I am not your performer. »
She also refutes the answers of the president of the club, Claude Michy, who has continued to assert that this decision was ” astonishing, surprising, incomprehensible”.
“Nothing was sudden or unexpected,” she says. Her decision comes, she explains, “following a series of episodes that unfolded over time”, explaining how she requested several meetings to discuss these disagreements and ensure that roles were clarified within the club.
During the press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Michy had said:
“She’s a woman, they are able to make us believe a certain number of things. (…) She just said, “I’m leaving.” We mightn’t get him to change his mind. She leaves with her secret. “She has a problem of trust which has set in, but I don’t know how it was destabilized. (…) Now, it is the continuation which counts. The club is structured, there is a staff to train the players. We’ll find another coach, or a coach. »
Announced in May in Clermont-Ferrand, the arrival of Helena Costa had the effect of a bomb and gave this second division club from Auvergne an international aura, right up to the pages of New York Times. Aged 36 and nicknamed “the Mourinho in petticoats”, Helena Costa assured on May 22, during her presentation in Clermont, that she had no ” not afraid “ to train the Clermont team.
