Giant-Shimano’s future is once again uncertain, as according to Algemeen Dagblad, Giant will only sponsor the team for one year rather than the announced four. There are also rumours that Shimano will step back and fund the team less. Giant-Shimano’s manager Iwan Spekenbrink has come out and said that negotiations between the Dutch team and the Taiwanese bike brand will be successful.

 "Our meetings are going well. Its about whether they continue [sponsorship] and how competitive we want to be as a team and how high the budget will be," Spekenbrink said. "We vouched for this team for one year," Giant's marketing director Tom Davies confirms. "We, or mainly the big bosses in Taiwan, decide in the upcoming period if we continue as title sponsor."

For the riders this news came as a surprise. "I was told that Giant was onboard for four years," Tom Veelers said. "I have a two-year contract and as far as I know I'll ride with Giant-Shimano next year." Tom Dumoulin acknowledged that it was news to him, too. "I don't recall what we were told exactly but I always thought Giant was in it for the coming years."

Giant-Shimano is currently the most successful team in terms of WorldTour wins this year after three wins from Luka Mezgec in the Volta a Catalunya and John Degenkolb’s wins in Paris-Nice and Gent-Wevelgem. They have won 17 times in total with wins also from Kittel, Ludvigsson, Dumoulin and Ahlstrand. They have a successful women’s team too, who have won 8 times in 2014, more than any other squad. Amy Pieters, Kirsten Wild and Lucy Garner headline them team.

In December 2013, the team’s future hung in the balance as no title sponsor could be found just days before the UCI’s deadline. Argos agreed to step down but an unnamed American charity was set to step up but for some reason it all fell through.

We had the chance to sign with another company, where we believed that there were more prospectives,” Spekenbrink told Cyclingnews in January. “This company wanted to sign for four years. So for that reason, we reached a termination agreement with Argos, in order to sign with this other company.”

This lead the team to sign key riders like Marcel Kittel, Tom Dumoulin and John Degenkolb on long-term deals due to the assurance that they had the finance and security to do so.

But things soon went wrong.

"They said they thought it was too early to sponsor a cycling team," Spekenbrink tells Algemeen Dagblad today. "Were we naive? In hindsight yes. We already had new clothing fabricated worth hundreds of thousands of euro. Now everything was hanging by a thread. What would have happened if we had found no sponsor? I don't know." 

The team will, along with Giant’s Tom Davies try and get compensation from the Americans.

"It might take years before we win this case but if we win it, we win together." 

Giant had already announced that they would sponsor the team after they pulled the plug on sponsoring Belkin. While they are only signed on for a year, Davies believes that the chances of Giant staying on as title sponsor are good.

"We are happy with how things are going. The riders are doing great, the main riders are under contract for several years and in Taiwan they also look differently at title sponsorship of a WorldTour team now," the marketing director concluded.