Cyclingnews understands that the major reforms to the structure of professional cycling have reached a virtual stalemate but the discussions have not been shelved as suggested by reports in the Dutch and Belgian media.
According to several sources that Cyclingnews spoke to but who do not want to be identified, the teams are demanding a new business model for the sport and want a share of any future or ‘upstream’ incomes generated by new technology, marketing and innovation, so they become less dependent on direct sponsorship. Tinkoff-Saxo owner Oleg Tinkov laid out his opinion on the matter today on his Facebook page.
However it seems that race organisers and especially Tour de France organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), are apparently against giving up their dominant position in the sport. Most race organisers have historically refused to share their revenue with the teams.
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The teams are against the idea of introducing a relegation and promotion system for the WorldTour, while race organisers are struggling to accept major changes to the calendar that could result in races losing WorldTour status to make space for new, innovative race formats that generate better income or wealthy new races such as the Dubai Tour and the new end of season Abu Dhabi Tour.
All the stakeholders acknowledge that major changes are needed to the structure of professional cycling to make it more attractive and financially stable. But for now at least, nobody is willing to give up what they have and the UCI has been unable to broker an agreement, creating the current stalemate.
Cyclingnews has seen a letter sent by UCI president Brian Cookson and David Lappartient, of the Professional Cycling Council, that calls on the Stakeholders Working Group to finalising the reform project by the time of the Professional Cycling Council meeting in June 2015. This objective was set at the UCI Management committee meeting at the Tabor cyclo-cross world championships on January 30.
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