Professional cycling teams do not agree with a budget cap, as revealed by David Lappartient - the UCI president - in an interview with Ouest-France. "I was surprised that it was mainly the smaller teams who rejected the proposal," the Frenchman stated.
Should there be a salary cap in professional cycling or not? The UCI has been grappling with this question for some time. The idea of a budget cap is not new in cycling, and Lappartient announced last year that the cycling union plans to implement one in the coming years. "With the aim of ensuring sporting fairness by preventing excessive disparities between teams," the press release stated at the time.
However, attempts to introduce a budget cap appear to have failed. "The big teams have very large budgets, and as a result, smaller teams nowadays tend to be spectators. Whereas in the past, you could still be competitive and achieve good results with a relatively limited budget. We therefore considered implementing a budget cap for all teams," Lappartient explained.
"Paradoxically, it is the teams that do not agree with this. I was surprised that it was primarily the smaller teams that rejected it. I think they see it the wrong way because it seems necessary to me to level the playing field."
Structural Imbalance
The dominance of a few wealthy teams in the WorldTour is becoming an increasing concern in cycling. The budgets of teams like UAE Emirates XRG, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Lidl-Trek, and INEOS Grenadiers are much larger than the budgets available to other WorldTour teams. A table published by Statista in 2021 already showed the significant financial gap between the top teams in the WorldTour.
