Amid months of race cancellations and postponements, and with several teams already announcing rider pay cuts, the professional team organization AIGCP, in a letter emailed on Tuesday, appealed to the UCI for "special action in response to the Covid-19 pandemic" .

AIGCP President Ivan Spekenbrink made the plea on behalf of 19 WorldTour teams and 13 pro teams to guarantee the future of the teams and the races they depend on and to support riders whose seasons have been disrupted by the pandemic urged the UCI to allocate funds from the World Tour Reserve Fund.

Spekenbrink noted that the teams' "high dependence on a very limited number of customers, namely sponsors (94% of total revenue) and high payroll debt (80% for world teams and 63% for pro teams) make them particularly vulnerable to the current crisis."

"Many teams already losing significant revenues, and all teams are facing a return on investment (in terms of visibility and sponsorship activation) if (1) sponsors run out of cash flow if the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to continue any longer and/or (2) teams do not have the resources to help their partners (in terms of visibility and sponsorship activation) to quickly, or (further) face the imminent loss of significant revenues"

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The AIGCP held two conference calls with the 32 men's professional teams to explore common solutions to the problems they faced, and the teams unanimously agreed that the UCI could help protect jobs in "these unprecedented times."

The first request was for UCI to add flexibility to its regulations to allow teams to adjust wages through furloughs, salary deferrals, pay cuts, and temporary unemployment without having to claim the teams' bank guarantee, and to allow them to modify their contracts to reflect "extraordinary circumstances."

The teams also sought adjustments to the 2021 registration process, including normally onerous requirements for contracts, minimum salaries, roster size, and bank guarantees, as well as "other temporary compromises that would help protect the teams and the jobs they support."

The AIGCP noted the importance of race results in the sporting aspects of team registration and called for a moratorium on classifications in 2020 "related to the next World Tour license renewal/attribution in 2023 and automatic qualification of professional teams [in WT events] in 2021."

They called for the rescheduling of "as many World Tour races as possible," giving priority to Grand Tours and Monuments, but "also smaller races that are important to the pro teams." To give as many riders as possible the opportunity to race and earn points, the AIGCP asked for more teams and riders in races when the calendar resumes, more pro teams in World Tour races, and an extension to late November for the 2020 season.

"Finally, we hope that the UCI will work with us to support the necessary World Team allocations from the World Tour Reserve Fund and possibly extend this to pro teams as a gesture of solidarity," wrote Spekenbrink.

"It goes without saying that we also support supporting World Tour and Pro Series organizers in similar situations.

"Finally, we cannot overstate the economic hardship that many teams are experiencing at this very moment or will soon. For the past two decades, teams have willingly responded to increasing demands in order to accelerate their professionalization.

"But in the face of an unparalleled crisis, we must redouble our efforts to protect these, temporarily, by offering a lifeline to teams in need. Protecting teams and jobs is our priority today, and on behalf of all the teams who participated in last week's conference call, I respectfully ask for your cooperation."