Sponsors V Rich Men

Leopard Trek are in trouble, we all know that: the so-called merger is actually RadioShack - a team which was on the brink of folding - taking over Leopard Trek, creaming off the highest-scoring riders, and discarding a dozen or so perfectly good, talented, under-contract riders.

(Get yourselves a felt pen and draw lines through the ones that aren't going to make it...)

OK we're all pretty bogged off about this, and in my opinion we have a right be be unhappy.

About this time last year, we were all sitting here wondering if there was any truth in the rumours that Andy and Frankie were going to leave SaxoBank and start a new team.

Then we learned about this Rich Man (Mr Becca) who was a personal friend of the Schleck family, and was a multi-millionaire, who wanted to be a cycling patron and have his own team. He didn't even want to have his name on the jerseys, which we thought was a good thing. (BeccaTrek - hmm, not the catchiest team title. Mind you, compared to the ridiculously clunky Radio-Shack-Nissan-Trek, it might not have been so bad....)

Early this year, this Mr Becca said "we don't need a main sponsor".

But suddenly, two days ago, he announced that it wasn't possible for a cycling team to go forward without a main sponsor, so he was reducing his financial commitment by 50% (we are assuming that he has reduced his emotional/moral/friend-of-the-family commitment by about 99%) and has basically flogged the team off to the Shack.

Now, takeovers, mergers and changes of sponsor happen all the time.

Indeed, it was SaxoBank's announcement in Jan 2010 that they were withdrawing sponsorship at the end of the year, and Bjarne Riis' failure to find a replacement sponsor all the way through the summer that lead to the Schlecks leaving in the first place.

You have only to look at the history of the ProTeams to see how much sponsors change: take the lovely pink and blue Lampre team, for example:

2005 Lampre-Caffita
2006 Lampre-Fordital
2007 Lampre-Fordital
2008 Lampre
2009 Lampre-NGC
2010 Lampre-Farnese-Vini
2011 Lampre-ISD.

As you can see, although they've always been Lampre, over 7 years they've had 6 different names.

Geox, in the last 5 years, have been Saunier Duval-Prodir, Saunier Duval-Scott, Fuji-Servetto, Footon-Servetto-Fuji, and now Geox.

It happens - sponsors change.

So, why are we all so unhappy about this most recent change?

Answer, sponsors change because they have financial criteria to meet. Money is available, times change, money is no longer available. The sponsors themselves get taken over, or merged, or get bored with sponsoring cycling (Saxobank). We all know about big corporations: they make decisions in a boardroom somewhere, and although we may grumble mightily about it, there's nothing we can do, "it's business".

But a Rich Man - that should be different. He's rich, he doesn't have shareholders, he's a personal friend, he wants to have a cycle team, he doesn't even want his name all over it (which he could easily have asked for), he doesn't have a board of directors to answer to.

He said "I have lots of money, I want to be a patron of cycling, I'll pay for it." He promised 4 years of funding.

And now he's turning his back on the team: to some extent, he's throwing them to the wolves by selling them to Mr Bruyneel, who is proud of his reputation as a whip-cracker, and who has made his biggest fame by taking one solitary rider (Lance) and building an entire team around him, allowing no-one else to interfere with the goal of Getting Lance To Win The Tour.

In which, of course, he succeeded magnificently, doing it 7 times. But there wasn't much of a look-in for anyone else in the team. It was understood that they were all subordinate to Lance. Which is fine if that's what you sign up for, but our Leopard boys are not being given much choice in the matter, are they? You, you and you, you're in. You 11 over there, you're out. Charming.

We are all disgusted at the way the news was broken, of course: there is no excuse for denying everything less than a fortnight ago, and then announcing it out of the blue on Monday morning, WHILST STILL failing to tell your own riders about it.

How to demotivate your riders, Mr Becca.  Oh, of course, you don't care any more, do you?

Please feel free to throw virtual custard pies at Mr Becca.

I think that is why we are so outraged by this: we expected better from an individual. We believed his promises of a 4-year commitment, thus meaning that we didn't need sponsors.

And now he's let us all down.

Worst of all, he's done this less than a year into the new team's life.

Not even a full season! Leopard are sitting at the very top of the UCI team rankings - we are team number 1, we even beat BMC, who had the TdF winner on their roster.

OK, Gilbert has won more races that the entire Leopard Team put together, but Team Leopard are still team number 1 in points.

There has also been some criticism that Team Leopard have come 2nd rather more times than they have come 1st: but this is the team's first year, the shake-down year. Even the unlovely Mr Becca has referred to this as being the "apprentice year" (although none of us remember hearing anyone use that phrase before) so it seems quite ridiculous to go to all the trouble of setting up a team, then dropping it like a hot potato less than a full year after starting it.

Mr Becca, we know that you have your reasons, and to you they are probably compelling and believable reasons, but we feel that you have treated Team Leopard like a disposable toy. And we don't like you any more.

Update: incredibly, "they", whoever "they" might be - presumably Mr Becca and Mr Bruyneel - failed to tell Mercedes about it!!

A few minutes ago, this report appeared in Velonation, with Mercedes - who kindly supplied all the vehicles, buses, cars etc - only just finding out about it.

Needless to say, they are pretty cross: Nissan will obviously expect the team to use Nissans now, so where does that leave Mercedes with their "long term contract" ?

Spitting nails, is the answer.

And at the bottom of the report, as an afterthought, Velonation add that yesterday, Mr Becca confirmed that Brian Nygaard is out on his ear.

Two minutes later, Brian tweeted "Leaving Leopard. Thanks for all the amazing support and above all: best of luck to riders and staff wherever the road will take you."

Poor man.