Late payments, no kit and riders leaving - Another British cycling team appears to be in a critical situation

Cycling in UK is in a dire situation with INEOS Grenadiers as the only professional cycling team, Tour de France leaving the free-to-air broadcasts and smaller, continental teams folding left, right and center. Another formation in trouble seems to be the women's Hess Cycling Team.

Launched in 2023, Hess were previously registered as a UCI Continental team, but have been missing from the UCI database since the start of the year, and now a joint investigation by ProCyclingUK and Velo-Club has established that the team paid riders and staff late at the end of 2024 and failed to pay their kit manufacturer. 

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The team has yet to race in 2025, and seemingly does not have a physical kit, with former manufacturer Cuore reportedly terminated the collaboration over payment issues. ProCyclingUK also breaks that salaries for December and January were only paid off in February.

The issues around payments are also seemingly part of the reason why the team’s UCI registration has been delayed, with ProCyclingUK publishing an email reportedly from the UCI to riders, asking for confirmation that outstanding payments had been addressed before they could register the team for 2025.  

According to information of Cyclingnews, the registration issue is now resolved, and will be complete within the next few days, with their first race set for next weekend. Hess Cycling was already set to debut last weekend, but that was not possible without a license.

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"We have been able to move forward with everything and will be registered as a UCI Continental Team – today, latest Monday," a representative of the team said in an e-mail on Friday. "Our first race will be the Midwest Classic in Belgium on the 23rd March. The team, the staff and the management look forward to kickstarting the season and look forward to hopefully many successes throughout the season."

The first concrete sign of trouble and the possibility of the team folding emerged on Thursday when one of the team’s signings for 2024, Estonia’s Laura Lizette Sander, was announced as a new rider for Coop-Repsol. Irish star Esther Wong also announced a move to British club-level team Torelli on Thursday. Cyclingnews currently understands that there is a possibility more riders will follow in departing the team.

At the end of 2024, Rolf Hess - Swiss businessman and main funder of the team, faced investigation in Spain due to allegations of fraud at one of his companies. The team said in a statement that this would not impact the cycling team.

"While we take these reports seriously, we would like to underline that this situation has nothing to do with Hess Cycling and will not affect the team in any way," a statement shared with outlets including Cycling Weekly and ProCyclingUK at the time read.

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