{"id":277887,"date":"2025-11-22T21:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T21:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/277887\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T21:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T21:41:10","slug":"cycling-should-stay-free-new-president-of-race-organisers-association-javier-guillen-adds-voice-to-opposition-on-ticketing-spectators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/277887\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cycling should stay free’ \u2013 new president of race organisers association Javier Guill\u00e9n adds voice to opposition on ticketing spectators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> boss and new race organisers association AIOCC president Javier Guill\u00e9n has added his voice to those opposing charging fans for entrance to races.<\/p>\n

Guill\u00e9n was voted new president of the AIOCC for a four-year term in the association’s AGM, succeeding Tour de France <\/a>boss Christian Prudhomme in the role.<\/p>\n

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Guill\u00e9n has been the head of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a since 2008, when he took over from Victor Cordero.<\/p>\n

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Speaking in a press conference after his election, Guill\u00e9n also said he did not support organisers using their current revenue to help teams in financial difficulty. “It’s not about sharing what we have, it’s about finding new business models to improve everybody’s income,” he insisted.<\/p>\n

After praising his predecessor Prudhomme’s work \u2013 “he’s a good wheel to follow,” Guill\u00e9n said \u2013 the Vuelta boss explained that when it came to charging fans for races.<\/p>\n

“It’s something I don’t agree with,” he said. “We are in a free sport, cycling takes place on the open roads where spectators can watch us, so one of my roles is to keep cycling in the situation it is and which it always has been.”<\/p>\n

Guill\u00e9n’s words echoed those of the previous week by an official from ASO<\/a> \u2013 which oversees the running of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a as well as the Tour de France and many other top races \u2013 saying that charging fans for events “is absolutely not on the current agenda.”<\/p>\n

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Guill\u00e9n was more open to the idea of putting a salary cap on teams, saying “There’s also been a debate about that, we would like to continue talking about it because it’s something we have to discuss. We don’t know what the final result will be, but cycling has to keep on talking about the problems we have, so why not keep discussing it with the UCI and the teams?”<\/p>\n

Guill\u00e9n lived through what was surely his toughest ever Vuelta last September as the event suffered multiple disruptions by pro-Palestine protestors<\/a> demonstrating against the presence of Israel-Premier Tech<\/a> in the race. But he expressed optimism that following the recent changes to the team name and sponsor,<\/a> things would be calmer in the future.<\/p>\n

“I’m not going into the reasons for it, but everybody knows that this change has happened, not only of nationality but also the owner.<\/p>\n

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“It’s clear that situation will help us and everybody to be in a different situation to the past. We want tranquility and normality. I think it’ll help everybody to have the cycling we always had, so I think in this question we have to be optimistic for the future.”<\/p>\n

While recognising that the overlaps between different races on the calendar were an issue that needed resolving, Guillen said the lack of information about the much-publicised OneCycling Project \u2013 of which there has not been any major news for months \u2013 made it hard to know what it truly represented.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, I can’t discuss a project I don’t know, I know the UCI has been in touch with OneCycling representatives, but I don’t think they presented any kind of project,” he insisted. “That’s why, with all respect, I don’t really know what OneCycling means, and if we don’t know what it’s about, and if I don’t know what it’s about, I can’t really say if I’m in favour or not.”<\/p>\n

“But in any case, it’s the UCI that decides about the race calendar, and while the UCI doesn’t say anything about this new project, neither can I.”<\/p>\n

Guill\u00e9n was not overly enthusiastic about the idea of “sharing the cake,” as one journalist put it, of current race revenue, but he did appear more interested in future sources of income, as well as the idea of new parts of the world like Mexico or Africa playing host to new races.<\/p>\n

“I’m totally open to talking about any issue, but we’ve been talking about these points many times in recent years. When we talk about sharing the cake, we have to be honest, it’s not about sharing the cake we have, it’s about sharing what we have to do all together to try to find new incomes.”<\/p>\n

“If we share what we have, nobody’s stronger, maybe all we’re doing is making people weaker. But I’m totally open to dialogue, but also to finding out new solutions, rather than old solutions that have never worked at any time.”<\/p>\n

Beyond Guill\u00e9n’s election to president, there were virtually no other major changes in the organigram in the AIOCC AGM, other than Tour of Flanders’ official Wim Van Herreweghe being replaced as a vice-president by Tour de France technical director Thierry Gouvenou.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a boss and new race organisers association AIOCC president Javier Guill\u00e9n has added his voice to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-277887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}