Dane hopes to have team’s future settled by July
Bjarne Riis is finding that the uncertainty over Alberto Contador’s situation is making negotiations with potential sponsors complicated, since he can’t say for certain whether the Spanish Tour de France winner will be in the team next year. Contador was cleared of doping during last year’s Tour by the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC), but the case has been appealed to the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) by both the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
“It doesn’t make it any easier to negotiate when a potential sponsor doesn’t know the full package he’s buying because the Contador case is pending,” Riis told Sporten.dk. “I think everyone can understand it.”
While the team’s year so far has been dominated by Contador’s victory in the Giro d’Italia, as well as a number of smaller stage races, he has not been the only rider to achieve good results. Chief among these has been the Ronde van Vlaanderen victory of Nick Nuyens, but it is Contador that the sponsors will be looking at when they decide whether or not to open their chequebooks.
“We have been in dialogue with partners, for whom it is imperative to know how it will end with Alberto Contador,” Riis confirmed. “Others see it as the big problem, but whatever, it’s something they can negotiate their way out of.”
SunGard stepped in as a replacement for Saxo Bank in the middle of the Tour last year, although the Danish bank was persuaded to stay on for a further year. SunGard has another year on it’s contract with the team, but Riis hopes to be able to make a similar announcement concerning the new replacement, or replacements, for Saxo Bank during this year’s race.
“We should very much like to get a clarification in the course of the summer, and hopefully we can announce something during the Tour de France,” he said, also confirming that he is in talks with a number of major potential sponsors. “We have time to come up with things and possible solutions. They are the ones that we are looking at, at the moment.”
While it is still not time to panic, the situation will be far clearer for Riis and his sponsorship negotiations once the CAS has come to its decision over his star rider. Whatever the case though, he will be searching for at least as much money as Saxo Bank invested over the previous few years.
“We must have enough money to run a team at this level,” he confirmed, “and the aim is that our budget for 2012 will remain unchanged.”