Team Unibet’s Statement

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | March 12th, 2007 | Trackback

The team at the heart of the controversy between the UCI and the ASO, Unibet, released a statement after a judge ruled in favor of the ASO’s prohibition on the team participating in French races. It seems like there’s more going on than just a problem with the sponsor… In car racing, when tobacco products aren’t allowed to be shown, the teams paint them out for that race. Sure, Unibet probably doesn’t want to be “painted out” for an entire season, but as far as I can tell it would only be for races in France. And would we all be saying the name “Unibet” every 37 seconds if there wasn’t a controversy? They’re getting way more name-recognition out of this than if they were just a little team like, say, Barloworld. (I don’t have a clue what their sponsor does.)

Anyway, the point here is that even though tour organizers and the UCI managed to shake hands last week (though I’m sure they all used disinfectant soap directly afterwards), the core issue hasn’t been resolved. Team Unibet was given a ProTour license, which they assumed - naturally - would allow them to race in ProTour events. Whether they should have been given that license in the first place is a matter for debate, but now that they have it, I can see why they’re peeved at being sidelined.

From the Team Unibet statement:

Till now, it would have been unthinkable that the US Postal team would not have been entitled to race in Germany for not having a German postal license. It would have been unthinkable that Deutsche Telekom would not have been entitled to race in France for not being notified or licensed as a French telecoms operator. It would be unthinkable that Bayer Leverkusen could not play a Champions League game in Belgium because its “Bayer” sponsoring goes against the Belgian law on advertising of medicines.

Sure, those examples are pushing the envelope a little… But y’know, seems to me there’s some validity to their argument. And on yesterday’s Paris-Nice coverage on Versus, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll alluded to a story where Italian race organizers were saying the Francaise des Jeux team couldn’t compete in Italian races because that sponsor is a French lottery. I say once again that the race organizers and, surprisingly, some of the sponsors now seem to have forgotten what is really at stake here - the entire sport of cycling. No biggie.

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