President of the Stade Poitevin Volley Beach following the judicial liquidation of the club in 2012 and until 2021, Claude Berrard did not appreciate that his successor, François Garreau, publicly criticized his management before the match in Nice where the Poitevin club faced for the first time his former coach, Brice Donat. In an interview, the now coach of the Riviera club was surprised that the Alterna Stade Poitevin training center had not started and François Garreau wanted to respond to him, also mentioning that “When the new management team arrived, they had to face a deficit of €210,000 due to the consequences of the previous sporting and financial policy. »
A figure that Claude Berrard disputes in the right of reply he sent to us:
“Let’s stop the whining,
1. Different articles repeatedly mention a so-called deficit of 210,000 euros when the current team took over the club. This is obviously not the truth, as every year there was a much smaller deficit that I filled either with sponsors or personally, without lamenting. The current president complains about the balance sheet, but did you hear me complain when I took the club with only the carpet on the floor without a piece of furniture, not even a chair and obviously with an empty account?
2. Regarding Brice Donat's results, I emphasize that he took the club to the third division, brought it up in two years to the first division, that he won a Coupe de France, that he was in the semi-final of the European Cup against the great Belgorod and that he qualified the team for the play-offs every year until my departure.
3. As for the training center, it was of course mentioned in the office and in the steering committee, but was postponed due to the cost and the fact that certain clubs themselves abandoned it for financial reasons.
4. Finally to conclude, the vice-president of these years mentioned, who became president, if he did not agree with “a policy dangerous for the sustainability of the club” never spoke about it and he did not not resigned! What courage…”
