B&B Hotels-KTM is going through a rough phase. As of now, it is highly doubtful whether the team will return next year. The riders have been told they are free to seek other employment opportunities.
In an interview with Het Nieuwsblad,
Jens Debusschere and
Eliot Lietaer shared their view on B&B Hotels-KTM. Both were told to look for other places in a zoom meeting held last Friday. Debusschere wasn't happy with the news just before the new season started. "Somehow, I was happy to hear the whole story for once, but at the same time, you have to say: telling everyone off only in December is actually not done for me," Debusschere told Het Nieuwsblad.
Lietaer adds, "That's precisely why I hadn't seen this to-totally coming. Pineau has been a racing driver himself. I thought he would have a plan B somewhere, something he kept in reserve. But apparently not. However, Pineau also knows that it is a disaster, a bloodbath if you have to tell 24 riders in December that they are end of the contract."
Lietaer says everything was going smoothly till October, "At that time, it was still happy days. No problem." But slowly cracks started to appear. "Two days after that, Paris would have withdrawn for political reasons. Pineau - no doubt with the best of intentions - still tried to find the money somewhere else, but to no avail. And the longer he waited, the worse it got for us," described Lietaer.
Pineau reveals the team still has some budget left but it's only feasible for the ProContinental team."He had an important meeting about that on Monday to decide what they are going to do: book up, plug out or continue at a lower level anyway. With four, five million, a ProContinental team is basically feasible."
Should Pineau choose to ride in the lower level, Lieataer and Debusschere will support him. "If the team continues at the lower level, there is no problem to take that off. We can put ourselves on the map and thus help to ensure that Pineau's project will also see some upward movement again," concluded Debusschere.
