Re:
RedheadDane said:
Could you provide a translation of the main parts?
The new sponsor for the cycling team of Patrick Lefevere lives at the cycling manager in Roeselare around the corner. Quick.Step Floors will be called Deceuninck-QuickStep in 2019. Deceuninck is a listed multinational and makes PVC profiles for windows and doors. A "multi-year" agreement has been concluded with Lefevere.
Lefevere's search for a new sponsor took months, even years. And she went around the world. In the end, one phone call from Roeselare, where Patrick Lefevere lives, was enough.
One month ago Deceuninck's marketing director asked if there was still room for the jerseys. And if they could talk. That was possible. The rest is history. The contract was completed in less than a month and was signed last night.
Long-term
Lefevere has found a sponsor for the long term. "Those people are not planning to enter cycling for one or two years. Deceuninck does not believe in short-term politics, "says Lefevere. "A sponsorship of three or four years has no effect," says CEO Francis Van Eeckhout.
Deceuninck has an annual turnover of almost 700 million euros. The company employs 4,000 people and is listed on a stock exchange. It has offices in Belgium, Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Colombia, Turkey, USA, India and Chile.
The new contract comes just in time. Zdenek Bakala, the Czech owner of the team, will stop sponsoring in 2019. Lefevere already had a plan B. "And that would have hurt." But so far it should not come.
Amounts were not mentioned yesterday, but with the arrival of Deceuninck Lefevere remains at the same budget level as in previous years. Lefevere: "Deceuninck is not a sponsor with whom I can make a team. But that is not necessary. The brands Quick.Step, Latexco, Lidl and Specialized, who are already sponsor of the team, will continue until 2021. We do not have to have the biggest budget of the world, if we are the most winning team and also a little sympathetic. Budget is important, but not everything. "(MG)
"If tomorrow comes a mad billionaire from Mexico who wants to buy this team, he can have them." Patrick Lefevere had not said no. Because money does not smell. But it has not come so far. Deceuninck, from Roeselare, is the new sponsor that ensures the future of the team. "There has been a lot of stress."
You have just signed a multi-year contract with a new sponsor. You can not retire yet.
"Indeed, this is not the right time. The partners we have, like to keep me on board as a kind of security. I am old and wise enough to delegate. In the long term I must be able to figure out something that two or three people take on the actual leadership of the team, under my supervision. "
You have succeeded in finding a new sponsor.
"I will not say that my vanity has not been caressed. Stress has fallen away from me. "
"I am not easily jealous. But a sponsor like Jumbo who signed an agreement for six years, something like that was never granted to me. We won nearly seventy victories this year. We are the most successful team for six years in a row. We can now continue on that momentum. I do not promise seventy victories next year. But that we are going for quality and quantity. "
You say: the future of the team is insured for three years.
"We have ongoing agreements with our current sponsors: Quick.Step, Lidl and Specialized. These are agreements concluded in 2017. Then it was said: until 2019, with an option for 2020 or 2021. With Latexco I only have a contract because I have to. Every year we extend the sponsorship with a handshake. "
"Now comes Deceuninck, that is a contract for several years. They also know something about marketing there. They know that you do not have to step into that story for two years. Then you might as well throw your money into the river. "
Deceuninck is Belgian, your team is Belgian.
"This may sound coarse, but money does not smell. If tomorrow comes a mad billionaire from Mexico who wants to buy this team, he can have them. "
Where did the story Fernando Gaviria suddenly come from? Did you have to sell it because the water was on your lips. And will he stay now?
"A rider who is made crazy about what he can earn does not have to stay with me. We will come back to it. But what has now been said about Gaviria and Mas (Gaviria would go to UAE where he could earn two million euros, Mas would make the switch to Astana, ed.) Is not true at all. Mas does not go to Astana. Not as long as he is under contract with me. The last word has not yet been said about Gaviria. Jhonatan Narvaez is leaving, to Team Sky. At least: if they deposit the money into my account. "
And if you had not taken Deceuninck on board as a sponsor ...
"Then I would have to let Gaviria go. Like I let Niki Terpstra go. If I had not found this new sponsor, then in 2019 Niki Terpstra no longer ran the contract terms he has today. I did not want that on my conscience either. It is a painful goodbye for each of us, but with a good outcome. "
Zdenek Bakala, the owner of the team, will stop the sponsorship in 2019. It was high time you found a new sponsor.
"I had a plan B. I will not explain that. I can only say that it had hurt. Bakala would originally only sponsor for four years. It has been six years. He is still the main shareholder. If he says tomorrow, "I sold the team," I have to accept that. But it is true that he would no longer sponsor next year. "
Then you were lucky.
"Happiness does not exist."
You only received a phone call from Deceuninck's marketing director a month ago. If that phone call had come a month later, you had a problem.
"I would have been stupid if I had not taken into account a worst case scenario. But now I'm back in a bestcase story. "
"I negotiated with CEO Francis Van Eeckhout. I did not know him. We have been at his home. We did not want to put the company in turmoil. With my famous head the stories would have gone a course. The negotiations took half an hour. Then we had an agreement. "
The team is still doing well, you only keep 23 riders on board.
"I plan to ride fewer races next year. And there is the question mark Petr Vakoc (the Czech was badly injured in a January collision in South Africa and did not race this year, ed.). I paid Vakoc for a whole year. I did not have to do that. He also had a nice contract. I have proposed to him that he may stay, provided that we get the agreement of the professors who must give him the medical approval to race, but then to the minimum contract for WorldTel level. "
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