Arkéa – B&B Hotels were set for relegation this winter out of the World Tour, but the French team’s end is only the symptom of a bigger illness in the peloton. Financially speaking, a few teams have evolved significantly whilst behind, those who don’t get left behind significantly and can no longer be competitive at the highest level. Team manager Emmanuel Hubert is yet another figure who calls for the introduction of salary caps to limit the differences.
With UAE Team Emirates – XRG stacking up a yearly budget of around €60 million, it has become the triple of some of the lower-end World Tour team’s budget for a year, that also being the case with Arkéa. The differences are astronomical and not only are most of the sport’s top riders accumulating in a specific set of teams, but also most of the brightest developing stars.
It is the sport’s natural progression at the time being, an understandable situation, but a difficult one for those who get left behind. In Arkéa’s case not just the men’s team, but women’s and development programs. “It’s heartbreaking, especially for my 150 employees. We’re a family,” Hubert said in words to RMC. “Cycling suffers from an overly exponential format, with very large teams taking us to new levels. Perhaps the UCI will have to legislate on salary caps. Something must be done, otherwise cycling will die.”
For Arkéa now, time has run out. In the past few years the signing of riders such as Nairo Quintana and Arnaud Démare gave the team good leverage, but whilst the former was involved in a tramadol scandal and was later removed from the team, Démare struggled to remain competitive in the final years of his career. The team found a shining diamond in Kévin Vauquelin this year, but the Frenchman’s performances could’ve never saved the team’s World Tour license – against a developing field of ProTeams that were several levels above. There was a hunt for many months for new title sponsors who could keep the team afloat, even if at ProTeam level, but this was ultimately not successful. Wagner Bazin is also ending this year whilst the Intermarché-Lotto merger is also set to leave several riders and staff without a job.
Despite Kévin Vauquelin’s brilliant season, Arkéa wasn’t able to recruit new sponsors. @Sirotti