“She was mentally exhausted by Tadici, she was crying non-stop!”

New disturbing details come to the surface in the week in which the world of Romanian handball kept its eyes not only on the World Cup in which Romania is participating, but also on the unbelievable revelations from HC Zalău, the club coached by the former selector Gheorghe Tadici.

GSP took possession some cruel details that have the tulcean as the protagonist Denisa Valcana very talented player, retired when she was not even 25 years old, after a career start in which he had already ticked off important names from the League of Flowers.

A handball player from Zalău, who did not want to make her identity public, told GSP what happened to Denisa because of the 73-year-old coach. The source also confirms the treatments to which the rest of the handball players are also subjected.

“Denisa was mentally exhausted, she was crying non-stop!”

“Last year, a colleague from the team, Denisa Vâlcanshe was mentally exhausted and wanted at all costs to finish the contract and never return to handball!

She cried non-stop and said she was not raised by her parents to be teased, as much as she loves handball and sports. In the summer she put an end to her career and was very upset.

And she was fined, insulted and put in ugly poses all the time. At almost every training there were discussions and she was threatened many times that they would fine her”, reads the last anonymous complaint addressed to Tadici.

“The girls had won the match against Bistrita, and he was nervous that his bets didn't work out!”

GSP also got in touch with other people familiar with Denise Vâlcan's situation, who agreed to report the details of the withdrawal:

“I don't think there was any training without Denisa in his mouth. He would grab her on anything, even when he was running! She told him that the CSM didn't teach her to run! Plus the torture… He made her do the incline with leg bags and weights.

A colleague of hers had a sore shoulder in the last hall and kept running with dumbbells. Everyone was doing the same weight, whether you could or not. He told them that they only knew how to sleep on mattresses and goats.

But he has his men in hand. How does one kick him out? The girls had won the match with Bistrita, and he was nervous that his bets didn't work out, and he got down on the girls and gave them fines. The whole country knows that he is betting! He offends them on TV, in front of everyone, and no one notices.

Denisa made the decision to retire because she was being hated everywhere, she stopped playing at all, no matter how much she trained. Plus she wasn't the type of player to flatter anyone. If he had stayed another year, I think he would have lost everything! She was crying all the time when we see her”, say people close to the handball player, who in turn needed therapy to overcome the traumas accumulated in Zalău.

Gazeta contacted Denisa Vâlcan this morning, but the former handball player, who ended her sport and is currently doing a master's degree in psychology, did not want to comment on the subject.

Denisa Vâlcan, in one of her appearances in the Zalău team / Photo source: Facebook@ Women's Handball

Former official of CSM Bucharest, about the retirement of Denisă Vâlcan: “Grobianul destroys”

In the summer, Vlad Enăchescu, the former president of CSM Bucharest, also drew attention to the situation of Denisa Vâlcan, the club where she once played. The official blamed Denisa's withdrawal on Tadici.

“Probably not many have heard of Denisa Vâlcan! A handball player who was promising as a junior, but who did not take the decisive step towards great performance. He went to CSM, to Craiova and then to Zalău. This was the end of the road for her, in handball!

But no one counts these anymore. Read Denise's lines and you will understand more about how the grobian destroys! The rest is demagoguery and cheap populismEnăchescu said at that time.

Denisa Vâlcan, number 19, in a time-out requested by Tadici / Photo source: Facebook@ HC Zalău

Denisa Vâlcan, upon leaving handball: “I saw injustices, compromises, favoritism”

Denisa Vâlcan had explained through a post the reasoning behind her premature retirement:

End of the road. I have reached the end of an important chapter in my life. I have many thoughts and feelings to share, but I will try to summarize them in a few lines because sometimes the strongest emotions are best expressed in simplicity.

I loved this sport from the first moment I entered the gym. It was love at first sight, a sincere, pure one. We made real friendships, based on trust, support and intense moments together. I grew up, I learned, I formed as a man. They were beautiful years, full of joys, but also challenges. As in any story, there were disappointments, times when things weren't always right. I saw injustices, compromises, favoritism, things that, unfortunately, are part of the backstage of any system. But even these taught me important lessons.

Sport matured me. He educated me. It taught me what family means, solidarity, patience and the power to move on even when it's hard. I went through moments where I cried on the phone with my family, not knowing what to do, but it was all sports that lifted me up every time.

Looking back, I would have reacted differently in some situations. I would have had more courage to speak up. But I was 17-18, and back then… homeschooling meant swallow, shut up and move on. Now I know better. Last year, I understood that the time had come to say goodbye. When respect disappears, it's a sign that you have to retire with dignity. Thanks for everything. For all that I have been, all that I have lived and all that I have become.

– Denisa Vâlcan, in the summer of 2025

What other reproaches are brought to Tadici: “He consumes alcohol in the training camp. He shouts and speaks badly to us!”

Since Sunday, since Gazeta Sporturilor published the first revelations about the situation in Zalău, other handball players also took the courage, under the protection of anonymity, to narrate various episodes that allegedly took place at the team. Here are some of them:

Gheorghe Tadici takes away our salary rights and does not let us have a peaceful private life. He won't let us stay with our boyfriend in the apartment given by the club and does everything possible, if he sees us with someone, to remove him from the city. He tries to kick him out if he gets hired somewhere, and if we play a bad match, he insults us because it's just… our head.

What about the expired vitamins, his potions? A potion was made from several powders in a bucket, mixed and put into canisters. We had to drink them.

He drinks alcohol on trips until late at night and if we ask him something, he speaks very badly and snaps at us. We can never take the meal out and so he wants to have control over us all day, with 2 workouts a day and at least one meal. He takes us to the gym before games – what coach does that anymore?

He penalizes us whenever he has the opportunity, makes us pay the same amount of money for expenses, although we each use more electricity and water than each other. I've never seen a bill: a club bouncer issues a penciled table.

When we travel, we take detours to get to Cheile Grădiștei, where he has deals with the patron there, while on other trips we eat the same food at places frequented by tourists.

We have a game at the weekend and we have it away. We leave two days before to make a stopover at Cheile Grădiștei – so as not to be tired at the match, because the journey is too long. But many times we had looked at the apps and it was obvious that we were making detours to get there, plus it makes us much more tired to be on the road all the time, packing, collecting bags. I heard he has business with the boss there.

We run with sandbags and weights that don't help us at all, we go to the gym and load up before running matches and we stop giving results.

The first official from the League of Flowers to take a position on the subject: “Everyone in handball knows it's true, you can write a book”

Even if the reactions from the top of the Federation were slow to appear, including the other clubs in the first league preferring to stay away from the subject, there was also an informed voice that took note of the situation in Zalău.

Adrian Manole, the president of HC Brăila, briefly commented on the “Tadici case”, in a post shared on his Facebook account. He was referring to the exclusive interview published by GSP on Sunday evening, in which Francesca Bălan's father recounted some of the episodes experienced by his daughter:

“I don't know Francesca personally, nor her father, though everyone who is active in Romanian handball knows that everything he wrote/said in the press is true.

There are «n» examples. You're writing a book… It's just that many choose not to talk because of the influence it has on handball and other teams and clubs.

Handball Facebook pages, handball people, some even handball “maniacs”, are busy with interviews at the World Championship, while the girls are physically and mentally abused by this rascal, but they don't write anything… They just talk around the corners.

Shameful, gentlemen… In fact, you jump immediately with the Novak Law as if you are defending Romanian athletes… It's easy to be fake, it's harder with work and with the truth”, said Adrian Manole's comment.