Richard Plugge, manager of Visma-Lease a Bike, has voiced his current opposition to the introduction of a budget cap in cycling, insisting that the sport has more pressing matters to prioritise.
Escape Collective revealed last week that the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, has begun talks about the introduction of a budget cap, with the stated intention for one to be in place before the start of the 2026 season. Discussions with teams and other key actors are still at an early stage, but it is believed that a fluctuating budget cap merged with a “luxury tax” is favoured by proponents of the idea.
In an exclusive interview with Escape, Plugge insisted that “I’m not personally against a cap, although what kind of cap [he’d prefer] I don’t know”, but added that a budget cap shouldn’t be on the table right now. “My feeling at this point in time is that cycling and the UCI has a bigger problem to solve and that’s safety,” he said. “A week ago we got a newsletter from the UCI and there was not one word about safety or the incident at the World Championships [where Swiss cyclist Muriel Furrer, 18, died]. In my opinion, we should focus on that.”
Plugge, president of the teams’ union AIGCP for three years until this spring, has been a keen advocate for change within cycling in the past few years, first on safety and as one of the brainchilds behind One Cycling – a project designed to increase the sport’s collective revenue and to lessen the control and influence of ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France. “Also,” he went on, “the vision of not only the majority of teams but also riders is that before we discuss a kind of cap, we should look at the structure of the sport and how it’s organised.
“Take the examples of other sports where there are budget and cost caps, like Formula One, rugby and football: there are big, big, big, differences between all these other sports and cycling in that cycling is not one economic structure; there is no central income to the sport which is shared with all stakeholders like in other sports.
“Before we discuss a cap together with the riders, we first need to restructure, revolutionise, and reform the whole sport so that not only one stakeholder is benefitting. The manpower at the UCI is already very busy with all kinds of topics, and having such a thing as a cap adds another workload to that. At the moment, it’s more important that we look into safety.”
News around One Cycling has been quiet in recent months, although Escape understands that discussions are at an advanced stage and a final proposal could be tabled to the involved parties within the coming weeks. At present, only 10-12 teams and a handful of race organisers, including Flanders Classics, have signed up to the scheme that could be partially bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. It is envisaged that top riders would compete against each other more regularly as part of One Cycling, and that TV packages would be sold as one, but those behind the proposals have constantly maintained that it would not be a breakaway league.
Plugge would not be drawn specifically on One Cycling, insisting that it was the UCI’s job to lead the sport’s reforms. On budget caps, however, he was prepared to further express his doubts behind the plans’ viability, in particular the legal problems posed by teams, riders, and staff being based in a number of different countries.
“In the US it’s easy because it’s one big country, but here in cycling it’s the whole world,” he said. “I read that the French teams are struggling with the big social costs they have to pay, so that means the budget in France is different than in Holland or Belgium. We all know that the budget will be completely different in a low-tax country [like Monaco or Andorra, where a number of pros reside]. We would have to find solutions for that. It’s a big, big task to look into, but first we’ve got to restructure the sport.”
Escape has been told that, on the whole, most riders in the peloton have reacted negatively to the budget cap plans, although veteran riders like Romain Bardet have long since called for such measures to be introduced to curtail the dominance of the leading teams. “What I’m hearing is that riders are against it as well,” Plugge confirmed. “Adam Hansen [president of the CPA, the riders’ union] is a reasonable guy and he will be willing to look into a kind of system, but with the outlook that we as a sport as a whole can grow, otherwise we’re just taking something away from the riders.”
Asked if the UCI can be trusted to both reform the sport and introduce a budget cap, Plugge said: “If the UCI wants to leave a legacy, they have to look into having a more sustainable future for the whole sport and having an economically better future not just for one or two stakeholders but for everyone.
“The president of the sport [David Lappartient] might become the president of the IOC [in March 2025]. I hope he can leave a better world of cycling behind him, having made two big steps: elevating the safety of cycling and restructuring the sport in such a way that the whole sport is growing for all stakeholders.”
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