forgive the long post and the fact that I don’t know the inner workings of the English premier league but it seems it might be a good a model to rebuild the pro tour and re-integrate the organizers and cycling as whole.
Heres my suggestion.
· One License fee for all Protour and pro continental teams. This would be less than the current fee because the amount of teams paying it would increase.
· Instigate a salary cap for each team, which the UCI would monitor. This would help to keep teams as even as possible but doesn’t restrict overall teams budget
· Rank the teams based on results for example 2 points for a stage win, additional 2 points for each day a rider holds a jersey colour (like sprinters green jersey) and maybe 5 points for an overall win.
· Provide a weighting for each race, for example 10 for a GT, 5 for monument and you could either scale the rest from 4 to 0 or all be 0.
· Based on the ranking system the top 15 teams would be protour status and the rest pro continental
· Set a max number of teams / riders for each race
· Every protour team (that’s 15 under these rules) MUST start each race with a protour weighting of 5 or more (eg GT & monuments) then based on the max number of teams any other pro continental team can be invited. Team rankings would be taken into account but other factors such as French team in a French race or Belgium in Belgium race etc. could also be deciding factors.
· The UCI would establish (IN CONSULTATION) a minimum amount of points to avoid relegation and then at the end of the season highlight to those teams under that limit they have 12 months to regain their standing or be relegated. This has the effect of once getting enough points to be in the pro tour a sponsor has at least 2 years being in all the biggest races. If a team remains under the cut off after the 2nd year they get relegated and the top team from the pro continental pools gets elevated.
Doping offences
· Automatic suspension of rider pending confirmation of test results
· Suspicion of doping NOT adequate to suspend any rider. Suspicion of doping leads to more tests to catch suspect rider
· 2 year ban for rider based on proven offence
· Automatic last chance for the team. Second offence within 2 years means immediate relegation for team and exclusion from GT’s and monuments
· Banned rider can not ride for pro tour team for 2 years after their suspension
· Major offences such as systematic doping, result in immediate expulsion of team and rider UCI licenses.
Effect on cycling
· Race organizers get better say in who rides their races
· Pro tour ranking takes into account the differences in races and the different types of riders (eg sprinters & climbers)
· UCI takes control back to govern and runs as a not for profit organization. All money they have should be go back to the sport in terms of doping controls, paying commissioners, officials etc and administering the ranking and IOC / WADA connections.
· Race organizers pay a fee to the UCI to help with the above admin costs, recognizing that the UCI is not for profit and is therefore NOT trying to take all its precious money.
Pre-cursors
· Sack the current UCI management as there is too much bad blood
· I would advocate the sacking of all ASO RCS management as well (for the same reasons as above) but they are private business and not a realistic option
· Organise an effective rider union
· Drop the OP ****, start the blood passport, then even if people were getting OP blood they wont be anymore
· Clean the slate, anyone who doped, pre 2000, just accept that was what was happening at the time and leave it be.
· Everyone needs to accept their complicit role in things getting out of hand. Organisers UCI, riders teams sponsors, everyone
This may be a simplistic overview but those with a far better working knowledge of cycling rules and history could maybe build on this as an idea to go forward.
Lastly I really don’t want to hear why this cant work. I am very interested in what cycling would need to do to make something like this work.
Long live cycling!
Heres my suggestion.
· One License fee for all Protour and pro continental teams. This would be less than the current fee because the amount of teams paying it would increase.
· Instigate a salary cap for each team, which the UCI would monitor. This would help to keep teams as even as possible but doesn’t restrict overall teams budget
· Rank the teams based on results for example 2 points for a stage win, additional 2 points for each day a rider holds a jersey colour (like sprinters green jersey) and maybe 5 points for an overall win.
· Provide a weighting for each race, for example 10 for a GT, 5 for monument and you could either scale the rest from 4 to 0 or all be 0.
· Based on the ranking system the top 15 teams would be protour status and the rest pro continental
· Set a max number of teams / riders for each race
· Every protour team (that’s 15 under these rules) MUST start each race with a protour weighting of 5 or more (eg GT & monuments) then based on the max number of teams any other pro continental team can be invited. Team rankings would be taken into account but other factors such as French team in a French race or Belgium in Belgium race etc. could also be deciding factors.
· The UCI would establish (IN CONSULTATION) a minimum amount of points to avoid relegation and then at the end of the season highlight to those teams under that limit they have 12 months to regain their standing or be relegated. This has the effect of once getting enough points to be in the pro tour a sponsor has at least 2 years being in all the biggest races. If a team remains under the cut off after the 2nd year they get relegated and the top team from the pro continental pools gets elevated.
- · The above will also help to ensure that every team fields their best team to each event and would help the globalization of the sport.
- · For races outside of the GT’s and monuments they can invite who they like from the protor, pro conti and continental teams but must offer at least 80% to the pro conti teams so they can at least earn points to gain access to protor ranking points. No team is forced to attend these races. The draw card will be the possibility of earning ranking points in a race where not many other contenders are present. (keep in mind that even earning more points than a pro tour team doesn’t mean you move up a grade, as a protour team will still need to be relegated for that to happen)
- overall protour status awards will be based on the regular classifications, eg most sprinter points, most points overall, most juniotr points etc. rather than the one protour leader as is the case now. Also an overall person could be voted from the various category winners from the riders
Doping offences
· Automatic suspension of rider pending confirmation of test results
· Suspicion of doping NOT adequate to suspend any rider. Suspicion of doping leads to more tests to catch suspect rider
· 2 year ban for rider based on proven offence
· Automatic last chance for the team. Second offence within 2 years means immediate relegation for team and exclusion from GT’s and monuments
· Banned rider can not ride for pro tour team for 2 years after their suspension
· Major offences such as systematic doping, result in immediate expulsion of team and rider UCI licenses.
Effect on cycling
· Race organizers get better say in who rides their races
· Pro tour ranking takes into account the differences in races and the different types of riders (eg sprinters & climbers)
· UCI takes control back to govern and runs as a not for profit organization. All money they have should be go back to the sport in terms of doping controls, paying commissioners, officials etc and administering the ranking and IOC / WADA connections.
· Race organizers pay a fee to the UCI to help with the above admin costs, recognizing that the UCI is not for profit and is therefore NOT trying to take all its precious money.
Pre-cursors
· Sack the current UCI management as there is too much bad blood
· I would advocate the sacking of all ASO RCS management as well (for the same reasons as above) but they are private business and not a realistic option
· Organise an effective rider union
· Drop the OP ****, start the blood passport, then even if people were getting OP blood they wont be anymore
· Clean the slate, anyone who doped, pre 2000, just accept that was what was happening at the time and leave it be.
· Everyone needs to accept their complicit role in things getting out of hand. Organisers UCI, riders teams sponsors, everyone
This may be a simplistic overview but those with a far better working knowledge of cycling rules and history could maybe build on this as an idea to go forward.
Lastly I really don’t want to hear why this cant work. I am very interested in what cycling would need to do to make something like this work.
Long live cycling!
