UCI releases Zaaf riders after verifying Spanish team's lack of payments

What in the month of December seemed like a breath of fresh air for Spanish women's cycling, has ended as in many occasions these projects end: non-payments to the cyclists and a structure that has ended up collapsing. An aspect that seems to have been confirmed by the UCI, which has given permission to the cyclists of the Zaaf team to be able to sign for other squads.

Zaaf riders' torment could be about to end

At the beginning of December, Spanish women's cycling received fantastic news in the form of the creation of a new Continental category team with the financial backing of Riad Belatreche, grandson of Abdel-Kader Zaaf, one of the first African cycling figures to make a name for himself in the 50's. A project headed by Manuel Lacambra, an expert and great connoisseur of what it means to manage a women's team.

A team that took advantage of the demise of B&B, which was going to create a women's squad for this season, by signing a figure of the stature of Audrey Cordon-Ragot.

However, with the start of the season, news of non-payments to the riders soon began to spread, as Cordon-Ragot herself declared a few days ago when she was able to break her contract with Zaaf to sign in extremis for Human Powered Health with whom she made her debut, with hardly any time to settle in, last weekend in the women's Paris-Roubaix.

However, in the case of the other riders with current contracts, they cannot sign a new one or change teams until the transfer market opens on June 1st, at least until now, when the UCI has taken action and, after analyzing the situation of the Zaaf team, has granted freedom to the riders to change teams.

In any case, the team continues with its activity maintaining its racing program, which includes participation in the women's La Vuelta to be held from May 1st, although with a totally uncertain situation about its future, a circumstance on which the team itself has not yet expressed itself beyond admitting delays in payments, indicating that it was a one-off problem and that the budget was maintained as initially planned.

This contrasts with the statements made by Audrey Cordon-Ragot after her departure from the team, where she stated that "Since the beginning of the year, I have not been paid or reimbursed for travel expenses. Beyond the financial aspect, the conditions we had were not those of a professional team. I could not continue like that".

The situation did not look good at the beginning of the season when the guarantees needed to register the team with the UCI, intended precisely to guarantee, at least in part, the salaries of the riders, initially fell short, which delayed the formalization of the team.