Anthony Hacquard and Nasser Tahiri are no longer the coaches of ASM Belfort. On the eve of a crucial match for maintenance, this Wednesday at Prix-lès-Mézières, the two men were excluded from the first team. “The disconnect between the workforce and the staff is total,” recognizes Jean-Paul Simon, who has followed the evolution of the situation since his vacation abroad.
“I was not aware of the situation. But if we didn’t do anything, we were heading straight into the wall.”
On Monday, the president of the Belfort club explained that he did not intend to “change coaches with three days to go”, even after a series of three defeats which had once again plunged the club into the red zone. “Everyone is at fault, including me. I assume, but we are not going to get off the boat now, it is not sunk,” said Jean-Paul Simon, while inviting players and coaches to “wash their dirty laundry together.”
At the end of the day, the situation exploded during a meeting just before training. “I was not aware of the situation. But if we did nothing, we were going straight into the wall,” recognizes Jean-Paul Simon, who had to cut to the chase to try to cause an electric shock.
So this is a page that is closing for the ASMB. The defeat in Reims, last Saturday during the 24th day of the championship, will therefore have been Anthony Hacquard’s last match at the head of the ASMB. Arriving in 2018 at the head of the first team, Anthony Hacquard will have managed 153 matches. He led the team to the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France in 2020 after a formidable epic which saw the Belfortains eliminate Montpellier in the 1/8th round.
Xavier Demuth will act as interim
Following the club’s relegation to N3 at the end of last season, Nasser Tahiri, the club’s former emblematic player, was named co-coach alongside Anthony Hacquard. But the situation deteriorated little by little until it reached the point of no return on Monday evening.
Xavier Demuth, reserve coach, will act as interim coach until the end of the season. He should be supported by another club veteran, Maurice Goldmann, who had led the Belfort club to the National. They now have three matches to avoid the descent to Regional 1.
Classification
The ASM Belfort season
