“I was elected as chairman of the AIGCP with the majority of votes because I had a certain plan" - Richard Plugge laughs off Cedric Vassuer's calls for his resignation following Cian Uijtdebroeks controversy

Although the Cian Uijtdebroeks controversy has now reached its conclusion as BORA - hansgrohe and Team Visma | Lease a Bike reaching an agreement, the fallout continues. 

When the news initially broke, with Visma announcing Uijtdebroeks' arrival, only to see BORA counter the statement with a denial, there was much criticism of Visma's boss Richard Plugge due to his position as president of the AIGCP. Plugge's Cofidis counterpart, Cedric Vasseur even publicly called for his resignation from the role.

"I'm no longer so shocked by the commotion that arises, maybe it's because I've been doing this for ten years," replies Plugge in conversation with In de Leiderstrui. "We have also had a merger process and all kinds of things are happening there, about which a lot is written. Ultimately we make a choice and the result is now that we have Visma | Lease a Bike, just as it is now the result that Cian is here."

"For me personally, the way I look at things is that I don't quickly have an opinion about something if I don't know exactly what's going on in the background. They all have to know for themselves how others deal with that," he continues. "I have no opinion about how they arrived at those statements. I can only say how I feel about it and that's what I'm just saying: why should I have an opinion about what another team is doing? Everyone should know it for themselves, but I don't have to say that on Twitter."

“What should I do with it?” he asks aloud when questioned about Vasseur's calls for him to resign. “I was elected as chairman of the AIGCP with the majority of votes because I had a certain plan. We just got the SafeR project through with an overwhelming majority of votes. If other teams have a different opinion about this, then that's fine. There are many individuals who have an opinion in the media, in all directions. We also had that discussion in the Vuelta, when people also had many opinions about what we should do."