Sylvan Adams: WorldTour relegation is destructive to the sport

Sylvan Adam, the owner and majority backer of the Israel-Premier Tech team has called on the UCI to end the WorldTour relegation battle chaos and award 20 WorldTour licences for 2023.

The Isreali businessman has invested millions of his personal wealth into the sport in recent years, but he has become so exasperated about the UCI’s insistence on having just 18 teams in 2023 that he is ready to start a legal battle or even walk away from the sport if his team is relegated.

Adams is also ready to take on Tour de France organiser ASO if they continue to stifle the development of the sport, even threatening to create a rival event to the Tour de France to force them to change.

“We have to tell the emperor they have no clothes,” Adams says, using the well known idiom to show he is not afraid to stand up to the Tour de France.

Cyclingnews revealed last week that after an appeal by a number of the teams facing relegation, the UCI is considering changing their rules and awarding 20 WorldTour teams instead of 18, so that none of the 20 teams who have applied for WorldTour status for 2023-2025 would be snubbed on sporting merit. The UCI denied that any decision has been made but is under growing pressure to do so.

Agreeing to 20 teams immediately would end the current fight for ranking points in races and the battle to avoid relegation from the WorldTour. Agreeing to a slightly bigger peloton would allow the best ProTeam of the previous season to be awarded automatic invitations to the Grand Tours and WorldTour races, and races would still be able to award wildcard spots to teams of their choice.  

Speaking exclusively to Cyclingnews and Velonews before the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, Adams did not hold back. For the two-time former Masters World Champion said that a decision to end the relegation battle cannot come soon enough. He detests all the chaos and possible destruction of two teams that it may cause.  

“I call it a bastard system that doesn't work. It's a bastard system that destroys teams, that is destructive to the sport,” Adams tells Cyclingnews and Velonews during a passionate hour-long conversation.

“As Jonathan Vaughters said, relegation is death. It doesn't matter which of the teams end up being relegated, it’ll be a disaster because it's an existential problem. Why are we destroying rather than building?

“EF Education represents the United States. Don't we want to have a team there? BikeExchange represents Australia, Movistar leads Spanish cycling and my team represents Israel, a whole new part of the cycling world. So to threaten our team with this relegation is just so harmful, and I don't see the purpose of it. I don't see what's to be gained, so let's change it.”

The force majeure that wrecked Israel-Premier Tech 2022 season

Israel-Premier Tech are currently ranked 20th in the three-year UCI ranking and so facing relegation from the WorldTour. Their riders are chasing points but are running out of time and races to climb into the top 18 teams in the three-year ranking. After a dire 2022 season they are also unlikely to secure the best ProTeam invitation to 2023 WorldTour races.

Adams claims there are valid reasons for his team’s lack of points. He argues the COVID-19 pandemic is a force majeure, an unforeseeable event that lawyers consider a valid reason for a legal challenge to a previously stipulated agreement.

The teams trying to avoid relegation claim that the UCI promised to analyse the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic but then never did and ignored calls for change.  

“We started the year well out of relegation, but we were on the good side of the ledger, then we had this disastrous spring. We’ve had a tough time because of COVID-19, because of a ‘force majeure’,” Adams argues.

“At the Tour de France, we started to get a bit healthier and we won two stages but then five of our riders got COVID-19 and didn't finish the race and there were all the lingering effects of the COVID-19 cases. We signed Dylan Teuns early and then he got COVID-19. The Tour of Britain was his first race and we had two riders doing well there but it was stopped following the sudden death of the Queen, again that’s force majeure.”

Adams also highlights the negative impact of teams racing for points rather than for victory and even suspects one of his own riders is underperforming because they will move to a rival team in 2023.

To avoid the fight for points and the risk of relegation now and in the years ahead, Adams wants 20 WorldTour teams for 2023-2025 and a perpetual system that avoids relegation forever. That would make professional cycling more like American sports but Adams sees major benefits.

“How about we have a structure that builds value?” he asks provocatively.  

“How much is a WorldTour licence worth if it only lasts three years and is subject to relegation? I know better than anyone. It's worth zero because I paid Igor Makarov one dollar for his WorldTour licence. Is that the way we build value in our sport?

“Why aren't our licences perpetual? If you created that kind of dynamic, you'd create value. If you create value, there's more money in the sport and it’s a virtuous cycle.

“I know the UCI and ASO say that it’s not the European model for sports and that relegation is, but they’re wrong. Professional cycling is not comparable to football or other sports. That’s why trying to make it the same means it’s a bastard system that doesn't work.”

Adams could walk away or take on ASO

If the Israel-Premier Tech team is relegated from the WorldTour, Adams could decide to walk away from the sport or go the other way and take legal action against the UCI and even take on ASO. He seems to have the desire and perhaps the finances to do it.

“I don't want to say I'm going to get out of the sport. Because if I tell you I'm not continuing that I'm not continuing. And I'll never come back. That's for sure,” Adams says solemnly.  

“There's nobody on planet earth who's putting more money into cycling than I do. There’s the team, the women’s project in Rwanda, all the development work we're doing in Israel, all the grassroots stuff we're doing in Canada. We’re also working on the creation of a women’s WorldTour team for 2023 and a development. We’re building the sport here, and what are they doing? Destroying it. And I hate that, I hate it.

“It’s the UCI’s duty to build the sport up, and this is destructive. I call on the UCI to be consistent. And if something like relegation comes up, don’t simply say we have to stick to the rules, because that’s a lie, it’s phoney. And I won’t stand for it. If I lose and the team is relegated, I’m going to take them to court, to the Court of Arbitration for Sport."

In his few years as a team owner, Adams has quickly understood the balance of power that influences professional cycling and it clearly frustrates him.

He has realised that ASO own the biggest race in the sport so use their strength to dominate the governance of professional cycling. Some former UCI presidents tried to take on ASO, while current president David Lappartient appears to have a far more cosy relationship with his compatriots, doing little to curb their dominant position. 

“I find the UCI extremely timid. Why are they afraid of the Tour de France?” Adams asks.

He reveals how he has met ASO president Jean-Étienne Amaury and even ridden with Yann Le Monnier, the discreet but powerful ASO CEO.

“None of the things I am saying are personal. I like both of them,” Adams points out. “But Yann’s job is not to save the sport of cycling, his job is to run their franchise, and make as much money as they can, while preserving their legacy.

Some sources have suggested that ASO may actually open to allowing 20 WorldTour teams in 2023 and beyond as long as they can continue to select three wildcard teams.

However, If ASO opposes having 20 WorldTour teams then Adams promises to try to break their grip on the sport, even by creating a rival race to the Tour de France. Others have tried and failed to take on ASO but Adams does not seem aware or perhaps care of the risks and consequences.

“We have to tell the emperor you have no clothes,” Adams insists.

“They have lots of races but have no real power. I’m not afraid of them. They need us, we are the show. They make the show but we are the show.

“What are they going to do to us if we don’t agree with them? Tell us we can't participate in their race. Really? Just do it once and I'll go and start a competing Tour de France.

“We’ve all seen what’s happening with LIV golf, right? I'll make a competing Tour de France. I'll get all the World Tour teams in my Tour de France, I'll make the €100 million a year profit.”

Adams perhaps doesn’t really want conflict with ASO, so calls on Lappartient to simply change the UCI rules and allow 20 WorldTour teams in 2023 and beyond.  

“The challenge is for the UCI to put on their long pants, it can be 20 teams in the WorldTour and 23 teams at the Tour de France without any problems,”he reiterates.

“I hope David Lappartient comes around to understand that he and his board have all the power. They’re the custodians of our sport, so don’t destroy it, build it.

“I am not afraid to tell them that and speak my mind. There is nothing they can do to me that is worse than relegation. Yet there is a solution, that is the stupid thing about all of this. There is a simple solution, and it doesn’t hurt anybody: 20 WorldTour teams. It’s an elegant way out of this mess.”