Remembering Visma's last contract controversy, signing Wout van Aert in 2019
Cycling
Richard Plugge's Team Visma | Lease a Bike are the talk of the cycling world at the moment after they announced the arrival of Cian Uijtdebroeks, only to see BORA - hansgrohe deny the deal in a counter statement.
However, this isn't the first time Visma have been involved in such controversy. Going back to 2019, their acquisition of Wout van Aert also came under scrutiny. Whilst he's now one of the biggest names in the peloton, back then the Belgian was an upcoming name on the road, although he did have three Cyclocross World Championship titles to his name.
Riding for Sniper Cycling at the time, also known as Vérandas Willems-Crelan, Jumbo-Visma were one of many teams circling for van Aert's signature. Intent on making him the centrepiece of their Classics challenge, Visma initially secured the Belgian's arrival for the 2020 season.
When van Aert raised concerns over his team's proposed merger however, he broke his contract a year early and joined Jumbo-Visma quicker than expected. "Things have all gone faster than planned and we can welcome him to our team earlier," said Plugge at the time. “That’s very good news for the team, because we’re getting stronger. He’s a very big talent and we hope to be able to develop him into the Classics rider we all see in him.”
In the current controversy, BORA - hansgrohe are reportedly demanding a one million euro buyout payment for Visma for Uijtdebroeks' signing. In the van Aert deal, the transfer went through the Belgian court system and in the end, a payment of €662,000 was ordered to Sniper Cycling boss Nick Nuyens.
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- Jonas is the leader of Visma not the entire peloton. Its upto the CPA to lead in the matter of the riders ,namely Adam Hansen who was elected for that purpose or the rider representative. Sometimes these old riders give brain dead takes.abstractengineer21-03-2025
- Oh yeah, the photos kind of show that broken zip. It's completely detached from one side.
KerisVroom21-03-2025 - I'm so glad this is what the UCI does, instead of ensuring the safety of the riders. /sarc Abolish the UCI!acem8221-03-2025
- He had a broken zip. UCI are truly idiots.Pedalmasher20-03-2025
- The pressure of being considered a team leader has to get in the way of his development to a degree. He seems to be good physically but maybe there is a mental thing. I don't know, give him some time to grow a bit.awp20-03-2025
- Hey, you can always buy success, and with the stars realigning, Ratcliffe might see an opportunity in funnelling off some of that future public funding for the Manchester stadium project ;-)Mistermaumau20-03-2025
- my favourites: Mad and Tadej. We will see.
maria2024202420-03-2025 - Very difficult to tell without info, it sometimes happens to me but not that often, more on one device than the other. I suspect it has something to do with their extremely heavy advert loading needs for which your set-up might not be tuned and so fails often which might block the exchange of data and then your login credentials aren’t remembered. Might also have to do with cookie or privacy settings not being as tolerant as their data gathering demands? Check how up to date your configuration is first.Mistermaumau20-03-2025
- Idiots. Just give him a warning and move on. there was no time to zip up the jerseyabstractengineer20-03-2025
- It doesn't happen to me, I hope you can fix it.maria2024202420-03-2025