Duartista said:
I was going to write a post defending the UCI and arguing that this has more to do with the economic crisis in Spain - but then I read
this. It costs 1m euros to organise Pais Vasco and 425,000 for the Clasica. The UCI World Tour licence (I think this is just for Pais Vasco), costs
700,000 euros.
That fee paid to the UCI seems really excessive. I wonder how much GCP pays to the UCI for their races to be part of the WorldTour?
The UCI's reserve fund, which can be used 'to support a UCI ProTeam or the organiser of a UCI WorldTour event in the event of temporary
difficulty' (see
rule 2.15.245). They gave money to the organisers of GP Ouest-France last year to help it keep going. If they can save that race that I doubt many fans are that passionate about (or are even aware of, especially in comparison to these Basque races), then I'm sure they could stump up the €150,000 to Organizaciones Ciclistas Euskadi.
Especially seeing as their reserve fund was €3,888,501 at the end of 2009 (
page 6) and €3,053,549 at the end of 2010 (
page 5).