Axel Merckx has confirmed that he will not be taking up the position of CEO of Belgian squad Lotto-Dstny in 2023, and that instead he will remain in his current post at Hagens Berman Axeon.
Set for relegation from the WorldTour in 2023, the longstanding Belgian squad has also lost its CEO after John Lelangue announced a few weeks back he was moving on to become general manager of the Tour de Pologne in 2023.
Since then speculation has been intense as to who might take over the squad to manage top names like Caleb Ewan, Arnaud De Lie and Thomas De Gendt.
But Axel Merckx, the name that has been circulating for longest as a possible successor to Lelangue, has now turned down the position, according to a lengthy interview in La Dernière Heure.
Merckx said he had presented the squad with a project of how he saw the team could develop and how he wanted to work, “but that that wasn’t what they wanted.”
“They are continuing down other pathways,” he told La Dernière Heure.
The one concrete development, for now, has been the signing of well-known former Lotto domestique Kurt Van de Wouwer, in the new role of sports manager. But Merckx said he had learned about that through the media.
“This decision shows how the team wants to work,” he said. “Kurt deserves his post. He’s passed the tests and had some great results [with Lotto's U23 and women’s teams - ed.]
“But with him in the post, the team are looking for a person who isn’t going to want to be so heavily implicated in the sporting side as I’d like.
“I wanted to handle both the managerial and the sporting side. I haven’t been in touch with the team for a good while, but the way I wanted to work with the team isn’t feasible, so the conversation has stopped.”
Merckx said he had not been directly in touch with the team’s executive committee, but had instead been contacted by the Belgian headhunting company contracted to find the new director. He also explained what he viewed as the radically different style of management which dominates in Lotto, rather than in other Belgian squads like QuickStep-AlphaVinyl.
“I didn’t go knocking at their door, they asked me to present my project,” Merckx said. “It would have a good additional part of my career.”
Merckx added that he had also been approached by Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert, but he turned down the offer as he felt the current team of sports directors and managers was doing a very good job. "I didn’t want to be sports director number 6 or 7 in a team," he said.
As for Lotto, Merckx said: “I could have changed the way things have worked in the team for years, where everything is decided by an executive committee. I’m not used to working like that. In my view, a CEO should be making decisions and taking his share of the responsibility. That’s how Patrick Lefevere works, he’s the boss of his team.”
Warming to his point, Merckx joked with La Dernière Heure that: “I don’t think Patrick will ever retire, and why would he?”
In more serious tone, he added: “Patrick does a great job. It’s not at all clear who there is out there who could succeed him in his post. They say nobody’s irreplaceable but in Patrick’s case, it’s pretty complicated.
“His team is his life and soul, without him it’s not the same squad. Not because he’s a dictator, but because he’s a unifying force that knows how to get the best out of people, be they staff or riders. Not everybody has that gift.”
The question of who will, now, be taking over in an equivalent role as Lotto-Dstny CEO remains very much up in the air. The only person known to have offered to take over the post, Andrei Tchmil, has yet to be confirmed as having formally presented an application. Another name rumoured as a possible candidate is Rik Verbrugghe, currently with Israel-Premier Tech.
The number of rejections of the job is growing longer. Along with Axel Merckx, Philippe Gilbert, set to retire at the end of this season has already turned down the post, as has - reportedly - Yana Seel, currently working as Lotto-Soudal's Chief Business Officer. John Lelangue, in any case, remains in his post until December 31, and a meeting next November 9 of top Lotto team management could shed more light on the situation.
Merckx himself is set to continue as director of US Continental squad Hagens-Berman-Axeon, where he has signed seven new riders for 2023. However, he made no secret of the fact in the future he’d like to move into directing a bigger team in Europe, given that he now lives in Belgium.
