€2.5 million offer from Astana and BMC?
His final destination is yet to be decided, but it seems that 2010 Vuelta a Espana winner and Italian Grand Tour hope Vincenzo Nibali will no longer be part of the Liquigas Cannondale team after the end of the current seasons.
According to team manager Roberto Amadio, the team has been unable to agree terms with Nibali, and he looks certain to leave.
The squad offered him €1.8 milllion but didn’t receive a response. “For us the matter is closed,” he told Tuttobiciweb.
“It won’t be easy to be without Vincenzo. We always considered that he’s a true product of Liquigas-Cannondale, but it is also true that there are several proposals and there really is a lot of money.”
He said that both Astana and the BMC Racing Team are offering €2.5 million.
Resigned to losing him, he said that he hoped the rider would remain focus for the rest of his final season with the team. He wants him to perform well in the Tour de France, and he also believes that he could ride strongly in the world road race championships.
“I hope to have in France a serene, satisfied and focussed Nibali,” he stated.
The 27 year old Sicilian is in his seventh year with the team, this fact validating Amadio’s suggestion that the team has shaped him.
In that time he has won the 2010 Vuelta, finished second in last year’s Giro, triumphed in the Tour de San Luis, Tirreno-Adriatico, GP Ouest France, Giro del Trentino and Giro di Toscana. He’s ridden the Tour twice, 2008 and 2009, and was seventh in the latter.
Choosing not to ride the Giro, he is expected to return to the Tour in July and focus on taking the best possible result.
Liquigas is thought likely to end its backing of the squad this year. Undeterred, the team has reportedly already signed an extension with the Slovakian Peter Sagan. It also has Ivan Basso on the current roster.