Saturday 02 October 2010 at 16h04
initially published on 27 September 2010 at 0.02AM, updated on 2 October at 4.04PM
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Europcar is the new sponsor ...
more information at the end of this articleProbably no one missed out on Jean-René Bernaudeau having a hard time since a few months. All eyes of the cycling world are pointed to the team from the French Vendée department because of the doubts on the future of this team. New sponsor? End of the team? From rumour till rumour, from false news till denials, Bernaudeau's search for a new sponsor hasn't been easy the past year ...The search for a new sponsor
It all started with the announcement of Bouygues Telecom ending its sponsoring in 2009 - sponsor since 2005. For the Vendéen (Jean-René Bernaudeau was born in the Vendée himself) it's out of the for the team to stop. This would indeed mean the end of an adventure which started in 2000 with the sponsor Bonjour. Bernaudeau thus starts his search for a new sponsor.
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Total is the next to pop up, a rumour which apparently seemed to be true, but the company decides not to continue the negociations with the team.
The latest developments of the past few days are that Jean-René Bernaudeau would have been contacted by two companies last Friday:
according to the newspaper Ouest France, Caisse d'Epargne would continue its cycling sponsoring after having ended the sponsoring of the Spanish structure (Abarca Sports) just before ... that doesn't seem to be very probable
UPDATE 28 September: as expected a spokesman of Caisse d'Epargne announced there's no request for sponsoring currently being analysed.- while L'Equipe mentions a multi-national. Bernaudeau would have said that Thomas Voeckler's victory in the Grand Prix de Québec alerted this group on the fact that the team might soon disappear ... quite surprising that this multi-national takes no less than two weeks to find Bernaudeau's phone number?!
What will be the future for Bernaudeau and his team?
The days go by and the deadline is approaching fast (the team registration needs to be filed at the UCI at last on 30 September, that's next Thursday!). It thus becomes more and more difficult for the riders of the team to wait any longer and thus take the risk to let go a potential new team.My main wish is that Jean-René announces us tomorrow or the day after that everything's OK and that we'll continue. We believe in it even though time's going fast now. As long as there's hope, we believe in it.
Bernaudeau however needs his main riders (Voeckler, Charteau, Rolland, Gautier) on his side as long as possible because without them the chance (which seems to be quite small anyway now) to find a new sponsor is nil.
It seems to be surprising by the way that the team from Vendée has such a hard time to find a new sponsor. With its 18 victories this season (19 if we add Steve Chainel's in the cyclo cross), including two French Champion titles (Nicolas Vogondy for the time trial and Thomas Voeckler on the road, both in Chantonnay) and 2 victories (with Voeckler and Fédrigo) and the polka dot jersey (Anthony Charteau) in the Tour de France 2010,
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This last element seems to play a role by the way in the past few days in the search of a sponsor. Philippe de Villiers, President of the Conseil Général de la Vendée, would indeed be very disappointed if the Tour de France 2011 would leave his departement without the local team. He would thus not only have promissed to take care of one third of the budget (estimated at 2 million euro for a total budget of 6), but would also have helped in finding a sponsor.
The future
Friday we still thought we had to wait until Monday night latest to know the future of the team. Tonight in Stade 2 however, we learned that Jean-René Bernaudeau will be in Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday to try to find a final agreement (with Caisse d'Epargne or the multi-national).In the mean time Bernaudeau keeps hoping in this race against the clock, even though he seems to consider the possibility that everything ends at the end of the year: If we're no longer here next year, I'll do everything to get back after 2011.
To be continued ...
CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS ADVERTISEMENT
Europcar as the new sponsor
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A few minutes ago it was announced that this company is Europcar and the car rental company would become the title sponsor for at least 3 years (2011/2012/2013).
The only question which remains is whether Jean-René Bernaudeau had a derogation which allows him to file his team's registration with an additional delay? Indeed, the article 2.16.012 of the road rules of the UCI indicate that the registration must arrive at the UCI no later than the 1st of October! According to the newspaper Sud Ouest this is indeed the case: Bernaudeau would have negociated an additional delay until Monday.
this article was written in collaboration with Marylène Evrard
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this publication is published in: Cycling general (except Tour de France) | Marketing
Entre la quête du repreneur pour Bernaudeau et la fameuse équipe luxembourgeoise, deux dossiers délicats.
Finalement, il pourrait y avoir plusieurs bons coureurs à recaser dans des formations au budget de plus en plus étroit.
J'ai bien peur que pour Bernaudeau, la dernière chance soit une aide du Conseil Général de Vendée.
La disparition d'une nouvelle équipe française serait un gros coup dur pour le cyclisme français.
pour ce qui est de l'equipe des frere schleck j'ai un doute car j'ai lu un article qui disait que un des sponsors serait mercedes mais je croit que j'ai peu etre pas bien lu?
Pour l'équipe des frères Schleck, Mercedes est effectivement annoncé comme un des sponsors mais il devrait en toute logique uniquement fournir les véhicules (voitures, bus, camion) de l'équipe. Je ne pense pas que ça soit le sponsor titre.
Pour cette équipe une annonce devrait en toute logique venir très bientôt pour dévoiler l'identité de celle-ci.
Tout le monde peut louer la volonté farouche de JR Bernaudeau et la fidélité de T Voeckler pour avoir sauvé l' équipe. On peut se poser la question du devenir du cyclisme trop tributaire de son financement aléatoire. En foot les clubs ont des sponsors mais surtout recoivent d' importants subsides de Canal+.
Autrefois le TOUR ponctionnait les équipes participantes, ce que ne fait plus ASO mais elle pourrait les rétribuer, car elle touche des droits télé.