The Unibet cycling team, European cycling's personae non grata, will disband at the end of the year, as the Swedish operator is set to withdraw its sponsorship before the scheduled conclusion of its contract.
"Today, we have decided to disband the team at the end of the season," Koen Terryn, the team's general manager, told Reuters. "Our racers and staff can now seek new employment."
While Unibet's obligations to the team ran an additional two years, an especially difficult season, plagued by disagreements with several European member states over their gambling ad restrictions, coupled with second-quarter results marred by lower sports-book margins, drove Unibet brass to pull the plug.
"I don't blame Unibet," Terryn said. "If I was CEO of a company, I could not justify investing 8 million euros in a team that is unsure whether it well even race in the big Tours."
In its second-quarter report, released earlier this morning, Unibet chief executive Peter Nylander said that French and Swedish resistance to anti-monopolistic sentiment from Brussels, "amongst other things . . . adversely affected the Unibet-sponsored cycling team."