Former Team SmartStop director Mike Creed told Cyclingnews recently that he knew very early on in the 2015 season that there were financial problems with Premier Sports Group, the management company that owned the team.
Team SmartStop folded following the 2015 season after the title sponsor did not renew its contract for this year, and Cyclingnews recently reported that Premier failed to pay riders and staff the full commitment of their 2015 contracts.
Creed said he knew there were budget problems in March of last year, a month before the US national calendar began. Since starting with the team in 2014, Creed had always been paid directly by Happy Tooth Dental, one of the team's secondary sponsors. But when that changed, he knew something was up.
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“I wasn’t getting paid by [Premier],” Creed said of his deal with the management company that owned the team. “I was an employee of Happy Tooth, so Premier Sports Group never touched my money until about March when [team General Manager Omer Kem] and [team owner Jamie Bennett] came to me and asked me to have Happy Tooth pay them and they would pay me because they were short on funds. That was in March.”
Aside from the management problems with Premier, Creed laid half the blame for Team SmartStop's demise on Kem, who had been brought on as general manager following the team's successful 2014 season. Creed told Cyclingnews that Kem, who had directed the Bissell Pro Team and the Bissell Development Team before taking the 2015 general manager job with Premier, sold owners a bunch of “magic beans" regarding future sponsorship opportunities.
Kem declined to comment on the record for this article, but he previously told Cyclingnews that he is owed back pay from Premier and was also saddled with debt after using his own company's credit card to partially fund the team's expenses.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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