Once at the centre of Aqua Blue Sport's plans for next year, Wout van Aert has broken his contract with his current team, and the situation has already gone legal.
Wout van Aert breaks contract without team's consent
Having been at the centre of Aqua Blue Sport’s last ditch efforts to continue in the sport, Wout van Aert has now told his team he will not continue to ride for it.
The Belgian is a cyclocross star who has won the world title three times in that discipline and has shown huge potential on the road this season.
Van Aert is riding for Veranda’s Willems-Crelan this year, which is owned by Sniper Cycling.
Last night Sniper Cycling said Van Aert had informed it he was ending his association with the team, without its consent. And the team insisted the matter was now in the hands of its legal “counsellors”.
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“Wout van Aert has unilaterally terminated his contract with Sniper Cycling on Monday evening September 17, 2018,” Sniper Cycling said in a statement.
“This decision came despite the fact that the team management tried to unblock the situation last week - by offering him an improved contract for 2019.
“Van Aert did not accept this proposal and has opted to terminate his contract unilaterally with immediate effect. The team management regrets that decision.
“This matter is now in the hands of our counsellors. No further comment will be made in the meantime.
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“However, as pointed out repeatedly, we wish to clarify that we will be a ProContinental cycling team in 2019 regardless.”
The Sniper Cycling-owned Belgian team, Veranda’s Willems-Crelan, tried to join forces with Ireland’s Aqua Blue Sport in a bid to ensure the survival of both outfits.
Aqua Blue Sport at one point released a statement saying it had bought the other team.
It added the deal meant it had acquired van Aert as a rider for 2019. And on the back of his signing it planned to move its retail arm into cyclocross.
However, it was forced to withdraw a press release announcing the takeover. The deal then fell through and van Aert later said he had been told nothing about it, only hearing details in the media.
Aqua Blue Sport has since collapsed without seeing out the 2018 season, just its second in the sport.
When Veranda’s Willems-Crelan later announced it had merged with Dutch team Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij, van Aert was also critical of that move.
He described his relationship with his team’s manager Nick Nuyens as “below freezing”. And he said he did not want to ride for what would now be a mainly Dutch team.
Van Aert is planning a move to LottoNL-Jumbo for 2020 and said he did not want to ride for the new merged team Roompot–Crelan next year.
At that point, last month, Sniper Cycling insisted it had van Aert under contract for 2019. And it said it expected him to ride for it next year, before moving on only in 2020.
But with the rider now having told the team he was breaking his contract without the team’s consent, a legal battle appears to be already underway.
In such situations, riders and the new team they want to transfer to have had to buy their way out of existing contracts that they want to break.
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