• ‘Brailsford doesn’t know how to run a team on lower budget’ • American says Sky’s decision to end backing can boost cycling

Jonathan Vaughters, the general manager of Team Sky’s world tour rivals, EF Education First-Drapac, believes Sir Dave Brailsford must find a sponsor able to match his team’s current budget if they are to continue to dominate the Tour de France.

Geraint Thomas has no regrets over new deal before Sky pulled team backing Read more

“I don’t think Dave knows how to run a team on a lower budget and, even if he did, it wouldn’t remain a winning team,” the American said, responding to Sky’s decision to pull out of cycling.

“He’s selling a guaranteed win at the Tour de France. To ensure that he needs another massive budget. In my view, it’s either a direct replacement for Sky’s sponsorship, or the team goes away.”

Vaughters also believes Brailsford’s energy and determination should not be underestimated. “He has an impressive ability to reach into the toilet and pull out chocolate.

“Dave has got enough time but the longer timescale can work either for you or against you. All the riders will immediately start looking for options. The first thing they will have done on hearing the news is to call their agent.

“The biggest task for Dave is to hold the core group of riders together. He’s definitely got enough time to source a replacement but he has to keep the rider’s confidence in him high. In my experience, big deals like the one that he needs happen fast. If a negotiation is taking too long, it’s not going to happen.”

Vaughters should know. His breakneck attempts to rescue his own team’s structure in the autumn of 2017 after sponsorship in the region of $5m – approximately a third of his team’s budget – unexpectedly collapsed, cost him many sleepless nights and, as he acknowledges, his marriage.

“The stress of it all was a contributory factor to my divorce,” he said. “Trying to manage everyone’s confidence while you’re looking for sponsors is an incredibly hard balance to make. I really cared about the riders and wanted them to have successful careers but at the same time I didn’t want to screw up and ruin their lives.”

Vaughters said of his own team’s unexpected brush with extinction, that he had thought his potential sponsor’s investment was “a done deal”. “I had thought we had an agreement,” he said. “We were deciding on uniform design and how the bus was going to look.”

Remarkably, within a month of the crisis, Vaughter’s management company signed a deal with EF Education First, an international education company, enabling him to hold on to the nucleus of his operation and continue.

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In contrast Brailsford has six months to fill his £30m vacuum after Sky unexpectedly announced its decision to end sponsorship on Wednesday morning. The team followed that up by stating they would ensure “there is clarity about the future of the team” before July’s Tour de France.

Vaughters was forced to notify his riders of the crisis to allow them to consider offers from rival teams, while also asking them to give him time.

Brailsford now finds himself in a similar position, but the transfer chatter over Sky’s all-star team is already in overdrive and will ensure that any new title sponsor wishing to retain the grand tour champions Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome needs to move quickly.

Vaughters believes that in reality Brailsford has until August next year to replace Sky’s lost millions. “They have until the end of the 2019 Tour but, if it stretches on for that long, a lot of the team will have moved on.”

Salary expectations for Thomas and Froome may, despite their successes, prove hard to match but Vaughters believes the marketplace will be kinder to Brailsford’s younger talents, such as the highly rated 21-year-old Colombian Egan Bernal.

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“Bernal will find another team that will take him for the same money, and the marketplace will absorb the first 10 guys in the Sky hierarchy, but it may not be so easy for the riders beyond that,” he said. “They will have to adjust their expectations.”

While the dissolution of Team Sky may be bad news for some, Vaughters argues it could in fact prove to be a blessing in disguise for smaller teams and other sponsors keen to invest in cycling.

“Sky’s domination was the major reason that you didn’t see new sponsors entering the sport,” he said. “If a sponsor says: ‘We have $15m to spend, so can we win the Tour?’ then the answer unfortunately is: ‘No, because there’s a $30m team crushing it.’

“Sky’s presence was really dissuasive of increased sponsor revenues. Now they may feel there is a gap at a lower price point and be keener to invest.”