One Wednesday afternoon, the lawn of the Roger-Couderc stadium is teeming with young football players from the Athletic Club of the city of Vitry, the CAV, one of the two big football clubs with the Entente sportive.
It is only a part of the pairs of legs that will tread on it that day: more than 350 in a day.
Founded in 1897, a month after the Red Star in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis), it is the second oldest in Ile-de-France.
The two clubs do not enjoy the same fame, “but sometimes we play friendlies against the Red Star.
This is not given to everyone, ”explains Aldo Muller.
The youth manager within the club is betting a lot on the coming years.
"Seniors are at the highest regional level while they were at the departmental level five years ago," he slips.
In September, the club's first team started their season in Regional 1, for the first time in a long time.
"At the Ile-de-France level, we know that we are being followed", assures the trainer.
At the same time, he deplores the fact that "the best elements will play elsewhere".
However, this is what those responsible for the CAV would like to avoid.
"We want players to join a professional club by having left a Vitry club," explains Aldo Muller, a Vitriot who notably worked as an educator for ten years at the Paris Football Training Center ( CFFP).
Back to basics five years ago with a mission: to help young people progress.
Increasing workforce
The number of club members has almost doubled in recent years: from 450 four years ago it has risen to more than 750 today.
Lysia, 11, took her license a year ago at CAV.
This student of Casanova college, ultimate fan of Cristiano Ronaldo, aims to make it his job, aware that "you have to work a lot".
The same will and the same observation with Yanis, a “baby CAV” from the Balzac district whose father is a manager in the club and whose uncle played there.
At 16, he is both a player and an educator.
“It also allows me to progress,” he enthuses.
To better leave one day?
"We have children who go to Créteil, Joinville", deplores Aldo Muller, who notes a gap between the "dynamics" of the CAV and the technical means given to it.
“We share all the stadiums in the city.
We would need a place of life, fixed, without which it is difficult to have an identity.
"This is what fishes according to him, with" slots that are no longer suited "to the needs of the club.
"We bring light to the city, we would like someone to help us climb the last step," says Aldo Muller.
Roger-Couderc Stadium, Vitry.
Aldo Muller, the youth manager within the CAV regrets not having a fixed place for his training.
LP / FD
In the office of the Communist mayor of Vitry Pierre Bell-Loch, we reminded by the voice of the deputy (PCF) for local and sports development, Valentin Ierg, "the priority attachment" to "allow all young people to practice sport and particularly football, the most popular ”, which is“ possible thanks to license prices among the cheapest in the country, around 90 euros per year ”.
Towards a new project carried by a figure of the round ball
The international player and city child Cédric Bakambu, announces that he wants to invest in the club in the coming years, A few weeks after the announcement of the appointment of Pierre Mbappé, Kylian Mbappé's uncle, as president of US Ivry, the municipality indicates that it is monitoring this project "closely", saying that it "agrees to support it as long as it is compatible with the sport for all policy" in Vitry, taking into account the "need to reflect on the equipment sportsmen of the city ”.
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And to evoke the steps taken "with the State to obtain the means to meet the needs of Vitriots, in particular as regards sport" as well as near the region, requested for an envelope "of half a million d 'euros'.
The city, for its part, is planning to renovate the Balzac stadium for one million euros this year.
She recalls that the CAV benefits from "a significant subsidy" and that it is present "in the five stadiums of the city through the slots made available to it".
The municipality finally specifies that "it is not possible to privatize a municipal stadium for the needs of a single association".