Richard Plugge, manager of Visma-Lease a Bike, has voiced his current opposition to the introduction of a budget cap in cycling, insisting that the sport has more pressing matters to prioritise.

Escape Collective revealed last week that the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, has begun talks about the introduction of a budget cap, with the stated intention for one to be in place before the start of the 2026 season. Discussions with teams and other key actors are still at an early stage, but it is believed that a fluctuating budget cap merged with a “luxury tax” is favoured by proponents of the idea.

In an exclusive interview with Escape, Plugge insisted that “I’m not personally against a cap, although what kind of cap [he’d prefer] I don’t know”, but added that a budget cap shouldn’t be on the table right now. “My feeling at this point in time is that cycling and the UCI has a bigger problem to solve and that’s safety,” he said. “A week ago we got a newsletter from the UCI and there was not one word about safety or the incident at the World Championships [where Swiss cyclist Muriel Furrer, 18, died]. In my opinion, we should focus on that.”

Plugge, president of the teams’ union AIGCP for three years until this spring, has been a keen advocate for change within cycling in the past few years, first on safety and as one of the brainchilds behind One Cycling – a project designed to increase the sport’s collective revenue and to lessen the control and influence of ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France. “Also,” he went on, “the vision of not only the majority of teams but also riders is that before we discuss a kind of cap, we should look at the structure of the sport and how it’s organised.

This article was published on Escape Collective in October 2024. You can read the full article here.