Milram with new potential sponsor interests

There is new hope for the future for Team Milram manager Gerry van Gerwen, who today said that he has three new parties interested in assuming sponsorship of the team after the German company Nordmilch AG makes its exit at the end of the year. 

“The team is not yet dead,” said Van Gerwen. “There are still new options, and Milram wants to keep on helping us with some things which are possible for them, like with their contacts,” he told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zetiung.

Last week Van Gerwen said that an extension from Nordmilch AG, owner of the Milram brand, was his “last hope”. He told the Süddeutsche that while he had worked with a budget of 8.9 million Euros, “we could stay in the first category, too, with five million,” a sum which he found “still possible”.

The newspaper said that it had information that three potential new sponsors have shown interest this week in helping the team. They are said to be “a European bike producer”, a well-known name form the finance branch, and a producer of food supplements. A meeting is scheduled for Thursday with the bike producer, who is said to be based in a land neighbouring Germany.

In addition, the newspaper said, a major company in the communications industry is said to be considering investing in the team, but won't make a decision until September.

Meanwhile, van Gerwen has to cope with the fact that he will probably lose both of his team captains, who only joined the team two years ago. Linus Gerdemann is said to be in negotiations wit the new Luxembourg team with Kim Andersen and Brian Nygaard, and Gerald Ciolek has been linked with a return to HTC-Columbia.

“My team is being bought out from under me,” Van Gerwen said. “I know that and I have to accept it, because the time is running out for the riders."