Marc Madiot Lashes Out Against Jorge Mendes Involvement In Cycling
By: Zack Morris
Groupama–FDJ Boss Marc Madoit has lashed out against Jorge Mendes and super agents alike involvement in the sport of cycling in a recent interview with French radio station RMC. Madoit said that super agents involvement in cycling’s transfer market would be “catastrophic.”
Madoit went as far as saying that riders working with football agents would not be riding on his team in the future. The main point of friction coming from the GFDJ boss is the contract structure that these big agencies put in place between the athlete and the team. Football agents are famous for formulating contracts that give their athletes a ton of leverage. In the mind of the agents, it’s important that they maximize the earnings of athletes’ short careers.
“Of course we have agents already in cycling, but there is one extremely important element in cycling, which is that a contract has a fixed duration, and you respect the duration of the contract,”
“That means that if a rider signs with me for two years, he does his two years. At the end of that, he is free and I am free. If I have 10 euros, I spend 10 euros – I don’t gamble on the five euros I could potentially earn upon the re-sale of a rider. – Madoit said
Ironically, Madoit spoke about the potential risks of athletes gambling in the current “financial bubble,” referring to the current struggles that football faces as a stadium based sport.
“They gamble in an expanding financial bubble. Where is football right now with that financial bubble, with everything that’s going on at the moment with COVID? They are staring into the abyss. And we want to let people like Mendes into cycling? I don’t want Mendes in cycling. He can stay in Portugal with his footballers.” Madoit said.
This is an interesting point of attack, because the fact is that Football is a sport that has managed to create a sustainable financial model around the teams. Football team owners manage to turn a profit on their organizations every year, where cycling has a history of burning cash and running in a negative year after year.
In sport, these super agents do more than negotiate contracts with teams. Agents are responsible for finding additional work for athletes, sponsors, and creating additional revenue streams. It’s in the interest of the agent to maximize the revenue of the talent. Big-time agents involvement in cycling does potentially mean that teams could end up paying more money for high profile riders. This also means that the sport of cycling as a whole could attract more sponsors, and partnerships with mainstream brands.
Madoit made his point clear on his thoughts of Mendes Polar Sports involvement in the sport here with this statement
“There’s one thing he needs to learn but I think he knows already… he’s not going to earn in cycling what he earns from football. Maybe he has other ideas in the background, and they’re not good. I think these people want, at a given moment, to take over the general system in cycling, and that’s even more catastrophic.”
Only time will tell what the involvement of these big agents can bring to the sport of cycling that is still run by a small mafia like group of people who control all things from the top down. We all know money talks, and teams need to win to continue to secure sponsorship. Change can be scary, and this is the sign of potential change for the way teams negotiate contracts with riders. That in itself could have some team GM’s uncomfortable.