He is most likely referring specifically to the World Cup. Earlier this month van der Haar travelled to the USA for the Waterloo World Cup, but opted out right after, skipping Fayetteville in order to focus on the European calendar, and at the same time forego the standings. 7 out of the 14 World Cup rounds will be away from the Belgian and Netherlands, 6 of those in countries who do not border neither. This makes it complicated to finance all the trips when added up.
Start fees frequently "fuel" the star riders' trips, but that is not the case for the European Champion. “There aren't any. Only for
Mathieu van der Poel and
Wout van Aert, but that is unofficial. And not just in Vale di Sole, you know, but that doesn't matter. And we don't get any money for a certain ranking anymore either, that was ago from 2008 or so," he concluded.