Lappartient: "A budget ceiling or salary cap are matters that are discussed"

UCI President David Lappartient has revealed that there is currently discussion in the UCI regarding the possibility of introducing a salary cap in cycling in the coming years.

In an interview with Wielerflits, Lappartient has said that “it is true that we are currently discussing with the AIGCP to get more balance among the WorldTour teams. A budget ceiling or salary cap are matters that are discussed."

“We are now making a road map to jointly tackle these problems in the coming years. This is definitely an item on the agenda, because we don’t want all the good riders to be in a few teams. There has to be a balanced battlefield," he said.

According to the Statista Research Department, in 2021 the Top three teams in terms of budget were INEOS Grenadiers (50 million euros), UAE Team Emirates (35 million euros) and Jumbo-Visma (27 million euros); closely followed by Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team with a budget of 25 million euros. If not the, these four teams are between the four best in the current peloton, whilst the same report had the three teams in terms of budget with 10 (Team BikeExchange - Jayco), 9 (Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux) and 8 (Team Qhubeka NextHash) million euros, several times inferior to those at the top.

He as pointed out though that it is too early to brief about how the system would look if it were to be implemented in the future - specially as it is currently just a topic of discussion between the institutions involved: "We are not yet ready to go into the details.”