Voltage at all stages at VAFC. If, on the ground, Valenciennes, 15th in Ligue 2 with 15 points in 13 games, is not doing very well, the situation is not better in the offices. Currently, several club employees are on sick leave. In question, a lot of stress linked, according to them, to an authoritarian management on the part of
Eddy Zdziech, the club president since 2014.
“It’s a bit of a walk or die. The president is not listening to the employees of the club. We are on our own. We have the impression of being “shits”, warns an employee of the club. External service providers are better valued than us. Even internally, people eat each other. Each one observes the other. It is an accumulation of things. We can’t go on like this. The atmosphere is deleterious, it will end up exploding because there is a lot of stress. “
Eddy Zdziech responds to accusations
To this discomfort has recently been added a change of workplace which does not seem to have helped matters. For both economic and practical reasons, the employees of the administrative sector have just left the offices of the Hainaut stadium to join the Mont Houy training center, where the VAFC lives on a daily basis. Except that the new offices are far from unanimous. “We are parked in bungalows that are not suitable, with 5 or 6 people in 30 m2”, complains another employee of VA
Faced with these criticisms, Eddy Zdziech decided to react. Contacted by 20 minutes, the Valencienne president rejects the accusations as a whole: “Whether people feel good or not at the VAFC, perhaps. But that’s not the impression it gives me. For me, the working conditions are excellent. And when I hear that my management is hard, you have to ask the question to all those who consider that it is not hard and who even consider that it is good. I can’t please everyone. Sometimes some employees may find a management decision like something unbearable to hear. It can happen, but it’s not representative of the whole club. We are far from reality. This is an epiphenomenon given what is happening at VAFC. “
“You will never hear me being disagreeable or aggressive with an employee”
And no question for the northern leader to change his methods despite the criticisms and concerns of some of his troops: “These are people who go against the development of the club. My management at the club is made of benevolence. You will never hear me being rude or aggressive with an employee. We are far from having caused stress to the point of putting people in difficulty and putting them off work. This is really not the point. “For Eddy Zdziech,” this fight is pointless. It is absurd, is not normal and is even unfair. I don’t come to work to stress people out, but to work with them and get ahead. If 97% advance, so much the better. I want the 2 or 3% that remain to put themselves in the direction of the development of the club. But I don’t think talking to the press is the best way to make their case. “
Not sure that this speech is enough to convince and reassure employees, some of whom have decided to warn the labor inspectorate about the funny atmosphere that currently reigns within the VAFC.