"It's a shame, you're a shame."
“The Pinder circus”… On social networks, Créteil supporters have been showing their annoyance, sometimes with a bit of wry humor since Friday evening.
Beaten at Bastia-Borgo (2-0), Créteil will evolve next season in National 2. Supreme humiliation, the Val-de-Marne club even seized the lackluster red lantern chair.
Three years after his ascent, the former L2 resident will therefore find the 4th national level.
But this is only the logical sanction of a succession of errors and a functioning that is not always very readable.
Créteil had already finished 17th and penultimate last season but had been drafted thanks to the stoppage of the amateur championships.
Obviously, the lessons have not been learned.
However at the start of the season, coach Manu Da Costa, who arrived in March 2021, did not hide his satisfaction at having been able to "build a team that (him) looked like".
The reality is that he did not have complete control over recruitment and had to deal with general manager Rui Pataca.
Things got even more complicated with the return to the club in November of Helder Esteves in a hazy role of sports coordinator that he had never held before.
The former striker came out of two coaching experiences in Annecy and Thonon-Evian GG.
It was he who carried out the January recruitment.
Between Da Costa, Pataca and Esteves, the operation has never been smooth.
Internally, Pataca is disputed, little listened to and it is not unanimous either externally (agents, authorities, etc.).
In the fall of 2020, he was the one who vetoed the then coach Carlos Secretario (
who had to leave the club for health reasons
) to a return of Cheick Ndoye who was training with the group.
They feared he would gain too much influence.
The Senegalese had therefore signed at Red Star.
The Ile-de-France Geoffray Durbant had also been refused on the pretext that Créteil was looking for "real National players"... As a result, Durbant scored 16 goals this season and will go up to L2 with Laval.
Internal tensions
The influence of certain members of the steering committee, close to President Armand Lopes, has also complicated the decision-making circuits.
Inside the club, the atmosphere is deplorable.
At the beginning of the year, Da Costa had proposed his resignation, refused by his management.
He then attacked mysterious internal forces that would have interfered with his work.
“People who think that there is no change because my name is of Portuguese origin, that there is a pact with the Portuguese of Créteil, do not know me.
I'm not a careerist, I don't think only of myself.
Having the cowardice to drop ship in such moments is easy.
I have a lot of affection for this club, my management, but there are many things that people don't know.
But me, the dirty linen, I wash it in family.
Today,
His management, rather hard, has also found its limits.
Loaned by Paris FC where he had known the L2, the young Patrick Koffi (20 years old) returned "traumatized" from his Cristolian experience.
One morning when he arrived at training, he saw that his locker had been emptied without his knowledge to push him out.
The American-Ivorian striker broke his loan in December and his hitherto promising career is now at a standstill.
Last week, Da Costa had smashed his players after the defeat against Villefranche (0-2): “Me, I am not a loser and I never have been.
But dirtying my club, dirtying my management as I heard it, dirtying my supporters, dirtying my staff and indirectly my own name, that, I do not admit.
If they want to smear their own name, let them smear it.
The divide is real.
After having won only 8 league games in 13 months since his arrival in Créteil, it seems unlikely that he will be renewed in National 2.
Bassam Al Homsi new strong man
The construction site promises to be enormous.
But it will be marked by a change of importance.
Armand Lopes, 79, president since 2002, is preparing to step down.
Créteil will be taken over by Bassam Al Homsi, 54, a Franco-Syrian entrepreneur, in the construction sector and very established in the Val-de-Marne.
In recent months, he has already become a shareholder of the club and has entered the board of directors.
According to our information, he also got closer to the team and came to talk to the players several times.
Al Homsi who appreciates Da Costa, will have to quickly make decisions concerning the sports and administrative staff.
With what happened this season, it seems impossible that he continues to make certain people live together.