La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Oleg Tinkov has bought Team Saxo Bank from Bjarne Riis for six million Euro and that the Dane will continue as team manager for four more years. Reportedly, Tinkov will invest from 11 to 13 million Euros per season in the team whose colours will be predominantly yellow.
Speculation about the future of the team which is today knows as Team Saxo-Tinkoff has been rife since the beginning of November when La Gazzetta dello Sport first reported that Oleg Tinkov had bought the team from current owner Bjarne Riis. While both parties denied the claims, additional fuel was added when Tinkov and Russian riders Ivan Rovny and Nikolay Trusov were all spotted at the team's training camp while Irish riders Nicolas Roche and Matthew Brammeier confirmed that negotiations were going on.
Yesterday it reached its climax when Tinkov confirmed to Velonews that he would hold a press conference on Monday on London where he would reveal the identity of the team that he would run in 2014. A few hours later, Team Saxo-Tinkoff invited the press to attend a press conference in the Google office in the English capital, stating that important information about the team's future would be released.
At the same time, Danish public broadcaster reported that Google would actually become a sponsor of the Danish team but that appears not to be the case. Instead, La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Tinkov had indeed bought the team from Riis for 6 million Euros.
Riis faces an uncertain future as he is currently at the centre of an anti-doping investigation led by the Danish anti-doping authorities which is set up to investigate allegations made by Michael Rasmussen. This has led many to believe that the Dane will reduce his engagement in the sport as damning evidence may be brought to light.
However, the Italian paper reports that Riis will stay as team manager for four more years for an annual salary of one million Euro.
"I will continue with you as the team manager for four more years, and this will let me have fewer worries and focus more on the sport side, so as to be even closer to you,” Gazzetta quotes Riis as having told his team.
Furthermore, Tinkov will reportedly invest 11 to 13 million Euros per season in the team. It is unclear what will happen to current main sponsor Saxo Bank who increased its engagement earlier this year when Tinkov made his initial decision to stop his backing of the team. The team jerseys are reported to be predominantly yellow, instead of the Saxo Bank blue.
The reports are made even more trustworthy by a tweet from Shift Active Media which is running the Global Cycling Network GCN with Google. GCN will broadcast the press conference but Shift Active Media has ruled out that Google will take over the sponsorship.
"We are using the Google venue for technology reasons (live stream) that's all," the company write on its Twitter account.
The press conference will start at 15.00 GMT on Monday.
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