{"id":720387,"date":"2026-06-07T04:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720387\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T04:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:59:12","slug":"15-million-euros-patrick-lefevere-makes-astonishing-claim-of-how-much-lidl-trek-paid-to-buy-out-juan-ayusos-uae-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/720387\/","title":{"rendered":"“15 million euros” – Patrick Lefevere makes astonishing claim of how much Lidl-Trek paid to buy out Juan Ayuso’s UAE contract"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Juan<\/p>\n

Juan Ayuso in the colours of Lidl-Trek\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Belgian took particular aim at the corporate tone used by the team to announce the Italian\u2019s exit. \u201cWe thank him for his vision, leadership and passion\u2026 blah blah blah”. For Lefevere, those words mask a departure far more traumatic than the public version suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not be a literal stab in the back, but it\u2019s still cowardice,\u201d added the former Quick-Step boss. Lefevere argues Guercilena deserved completely different treatment after so many years building the project and establishing the team among the WorldTour\u2019s leading structures.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly they feel current results don\u2019t match all the investments they\u2019ve already made,\u201d wrote Lefevere. He also hinted that spending is spirallng. \u201cIf I\u2019m to believe what you hear in the peloton, an awful lot of money has already been thrown around,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The signing of Juan Ayuso<\/p>\n

The sharpest criticism came when he addressed the team\u2019s marquee signings. Lefevere recalled that he himself sounded out Juan Ayuso while still running Soudal – Quick-Step. According to him, the deal was utterly impossible for structures with tighter budgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said before that I asked UAE Team Emirates about Juan Ayuso,\u201d he recalled. The answer from Joxean Matxin shut down any negotiation. \u201c\u2018Impossible,\u2019 he told me, \u2018that will cost at least fifteen million euros,\u2019\u201d the Belgian wrote.<\/p>\n

Lefevere even used a popular Belgian expression to underline that the move was out of Quick-Step\u2019s reach. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t food for our plate,\u201d he said. Yet a few months later he watched Lidl-Trek close the deal for the Spanish rider, and believes the same amount of money may have been involved. Previously, values of up to \u20ac10 million have been reported.<\/p>\n

The former manager also questioned the signing of Derek Gee<\/a>-West and hinted that the figures at Lidl-Trek are excessive even by modern cycling standards. Although he avoided specific numbers, he made his view on the transfer crystal clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also heard a figure about the Derek Gee-West signing,\u201d Lefevere explained. \u201cNot concrete enough to repeat here, but let\u2019s say even half would seem too much money to me,\u201d he added pointedly during his transfer-market analysis.<\/p>\n

Lidl and Red Bull\u2019s deep pockets<\/p>\n

For Lefevere, Lidl-Trek and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe currently embody a new model in the international peloton. He believes both teams are behaving like newly enriched structures, trying to buy prestige, talent, and sporting clout in short order.<\/p>\n

Whilst their budgets do not yet match those of UAE, it is quite likely that their title sponsors such as Red Bull and Lidl have made big investments for specific transfers – not money that will have bee included in the yearly budget. With that, they’re slowly closing the gap to the teams that comfortably held the top previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cLidl-Trek and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe are the ‘nouveaux riches’ of the peloton,\u201d he wrote. He argued both teams are charging into every modern trend in cycling. \u201cThey spend a huge amount of money on everything that\u2019s fashionable,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

However, the veteran boss made clear he doesn\u2019t believe stockpiling stars and splashing millions automatically guarantees success. \u201cThe question is whether all those pieces really fit together,\u201d he noted. For Lefevere, building a great team takes far more than financial muscle.<\/p>\n

\"Derek<\/p>\n

Derek Gee, another expensive Lidl-Trek signing<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a dramatic game of musical chairs one month before the Tour de France,\u201d he wrote with evident disbelief. In his view, these moves create tension, insecurity, and distractions within a roster that should be fully focused on preparing the biggest race of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Juan Ayuso or Mattias Skjelmose manage to do something significant at the Tour, it will be in spite of this reorganisation,\u201d he stated. He signed off with a final, cutting line: \u201cIt certainly won\u2019t be thanks to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Juan Ayuso in the colours of Lidl-Trek\u00a0 The Belgian took particular aim at the corporate tone used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,59441,171886,49602,198088,85],"class_list":["post-720387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-derek-gee","tag-juan-ayuso","tag-lidl-trek","tag-patrick-lefevere","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}