Jumbo - QuickStep merger

[Netserk]

They should have taken sponsorship from Danish pharmacy enterprise Lundbeck.

Nembutal-Visma sounds legit given the way Vingegaard & Co killed off competition this summer!

I think Pandora is a more natural fit as sponsor. "Team Pandora - Creating Diamonds!"

 

[fmk_RoI]

To me it honestly seems like the merger was never that close and just way oversold in the media, especially judging by how quickly Jumbo have moved on to another name sponsor.

Speaking of how it was sold in the media ... Pat Lefevere's gone awfully quiet, hasn't he?

 

[Izzyeviel]

According to Plugge, the merger was called off to prevent one team being left in limbo (I presume he means quickstep).

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Speaking of how it was sold in the media ... Pat Lefevere's gone awfully quiet, hasn't he?

What more does he need to say?
He was active in the media the days before the merger collapsed and just after it collapsed it was confirmed he would still run Soudal-QS.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

According to Plugge, the merger was called off to prevent one team being left in limbo (I presume he means quickstep).

"I entered into a conspiracy to murder and spoke publicly about how much benefit that I could gain from it, but then realised that it would end up with somebody being dead."

Is this some sort of appeal to the public that he does have a heart, and he cares about the well-being of teams other than his own?

Let's all love him as the man who saved Soudal-QS: doesn't wash.

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

According to Plugge, the merger was called off to prevent one team being left in limbo (I presume he means quickstep).

Classic trying to paint yourself as the good cop after trying to screw people over, I ain’t falling for that.

 

[fmk_RoI]

"I entered into a conspiracy to murder and spoke publicly about how much benefit that I could gain from it, but then realised that it would end up with somebody being dead."

One hesitates to suggest facts matter, especially round here, but in all fairness Plugge didn't speak publicly about the merger. All the public (dis)info came via Lefevere.

 

[fmk_RoI]

What more does he need to say?

He usually has something to say most weeks, either in his column or to a pet journalist. But not the last few weeks. Maybe it's just the off-season quieting him down. Yeah, that's it,

 

[fmk_RoI]

“The discussion didn’t work out for a number of reasons,” Plugge said of the talks with Zdenek Bakala, the owner of the Soudal-QuickStep, alongside team manager Patrick Lefevere.

“One of the reasons was that after our discussions with the UCI, we found that there wasn’t a good solution for both teams; we didn’t want one team left in limbo.”

link

I would take limbo here to mean financial limbo, it was too difficult to extract value from the WT licence in the time available, leaving Bakala just chucking that investment in the bin.

 

[RedheadDane]

Plugge: We didn't want to leave anyone in the dark.
Feltet.dk: Let's illustrate this with a picture from the race where some of the Quick Step riders literally got left in the dark.

 

[IndianCyclist]

There are no heroes. no saviors, in this whole debacle, only a*holes to a greater or lesser degree.

 

[Berniece]

link

I would take limbo here to mean financial limbo, it was too difficult to extract value from the WT licence in the time available, leaving Bakala just chucking that investment in the bin.

I think it's Lefevere and Bakala that just didn't want to put that many people on the street, and they didn't find a solution for it. I don't think Plugge cared.

 

[Offline]

UAE has more UCI points than the Visma-Quick-Step merge in 2024