Soudal-QuickStep boss, Patrick Lefevere, has said complaints within his own team that it was not being run properly, as well as "highly unusual" moves made by Remco Evenepoel's father, Patrick Evenepoel, effectively led to serious merger talks between his team and Jumbo Visma.
Lefevere has set out how maneuvering that was out of his hands - and in the case of Evenepoel's father, behind his back - resulted in a letter of understanding being signed by the two teams to merge. He also cautioned that letter had been signed some time ago and that things may have changed in the last week.
He was clearly caught by surprise in recent days when reports emerged about Jumbo-Visma bringing in Amazon as a new sponsor. Lefevere has now suggested Amazon might simply replace supermarket Jumbo as title co-sponsor in the Jumbo-Visma team.
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One really interesting feature about Lefevere's new - and very detailed - remarks is that the complaints within his own team - that it was not being run properly - appear to have led the team's majority owner, Zdeněk Bakala, beginning the process of merging with Jumbo-Visma. And that effectively means the influence Evenepoel and has father have over Bakala has consigned Lefevere to a secondary role in his own team.
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The events that led to the merger agreement being drawn up, and the sheer level of rumour around that mooted merger, are complex. So we will set out in bullet points what Lefevere has now said in an interview with Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
- Zdeněk Bakala - the Czech-American investor who owns 80 per cent of Soudal-QuickStep - met with Robert van der Wallen before the Tour de France. Van der Wallen is a Dutch billionaire who is on the supervisory board of Jumbo Visma. He and Bakala met in Vienna to discuss OneCycling, a mooted coalition between cycling's top teams to improve their financial positions in the sport.
- Lefevere says things went well between Bakala and Van der Wallen. In the meantime, there were was "dissatisfaction" within Soudal QuickStep suggesting it was "allegedly not functioning well enough". That sounds like a reference to comments made by Remco Evenepoel that the team must improve if he was expected to challenge to win the Tour de France. At the same time - during the summer - Patrick Evenepoel went to meet with Bakala, which Lefevere describes as "highly unusual" for a rider's father/agent.
- After Patrick Evenepoel met with Bakala, amid the internal "dissatisfaction" within the team, Bakala then went back to speak to Jumbo Visma's Van der Wallen. This time they met in Vienna, with Lefevere present, on the penultimate day of the Tour. "To my surprise, Richard Plugge (CEO of Jumbo Visma) also suddenly arrived there," Lefevere said.
- After they talked that day, Lefevere went and spoke to his sponsors - QuickStep and Soudal - while Plugge spoke to Visma. Those talks were followed by a "letter of intent" to merge the two teams being drawn up and signed.
- Under the merger, Lefevere said he would sell his minority stake in Soudal-QuickStep. And then a new merged team would be created, with Bakala, Van der Wallen and Plugge dividing the shares between them. Lefevere would stay involved, but as a board member, not a part-owner.
- Lefevere believes Soudal, QuickStep and Visma could all fit together. But if Amazon was added as a fourth sponsor, he did not believe that would work. He described the apparent arrival of Amazon onto the scene as a possible "game changer". At the same time, he said it was not clear to him what Amazon's role might be. It may be as a sponsor, or simply as a content partner, which would be much less significant in the context of the proposed merger.
Lefevere added the intention is to retain Remco Evenepoel in the new merged entity. He asked Jumbo Visma to speak to Evenepoel, which they have.
And he has suggested Specialized would be the merged team's bike suppliers. That meant Plugge will "not have conveyed a nice message" to Cervélo, currently Jumbo Visma's bike supplier. But he says the matter of the merger - or not - must be settled quickly.
“Look, after the letter of intent it all dragged on for too long. But this cannot continue for three more days. Zdenek Bakala is currently flying to Europe. There should be much more clarity by Monday."
