English
French
Spanish
Gianni Savio’s 26-year run with the Italian group Androni Giocattoli practically got here to an finish after this 12 months’s title sponsor Drone Hopper – a drone transport start-up – fell behind on their obligations.
The group was lacking from the UCI’s checklist of ProTeam candidates and now, if the group continues, it will likely be as a Continental improvement squad with an eye fixed on shifting again up sooner or later.
In an interview with OASport.it, Savio mentioned, “The financial scenario of the group is at the moment good, within the sense that there are not any issues in ending this season,” Savio mentioned. “It is because Marco Bellini (Group CFO) and I’ve discovered different options to make up for the funds that haven’t been made by the Drone Hopper, which is thrice behind.”
The riders and workers got permission to hunt employment elsewhere months in the past.
“We mentioned immediately that in case the riders and workers have obtained one other alternative to signal on the fly, in case we’ve to make the group we’ll discuss it once more. Nobody will ever have the ability to say that they’ve misplaced a job alternative due to us. We had been corrected and three months in the past we reported the scenario to everybody.”
The group had a four-year contract with Drone Hopper the corporate had been unable to fulfill their obligations. Savio mentioned “they’re good folks” who talked about supporting the group in a bid to hitch the WorldTour.
“We at all times contemplate the Drone Hopper contract legitimate. We’re ready for them to get again on monitor to get their venture off the bottom after which we are able to proceed collectively. Clearly, subsequent 12 months he won’t be able to be our most important sponsor, however we’re giving him the chance to proceed supporting our venture,” Savio mentioned.
Ultimately, Androni Giocattoli patron Pino Buda agreed to save lots of the group for this 12 months. The group now face a frantic seek for sponsors and contracts to fulfill the UCI’s November 10 deadline for his or her software.
“It’s a scenario that caught us unprepared, we’ll see how we handle to get out of it,” Savio mentioned. “Discovering sponsors has by no means been straightforward, at the moment it’s much more tough. The financial system isn’t booming, the pandemic, the conflict, the rise in electrical energy costs, are all parts that preserve firms away from sponsorships.
“The varied negotiations that we’ve began all around the world up to now haven’t introduced me a concrete end result. There are nonetheless two options that our interlocutors are contemplating, as a result of at this level our concept is extra geared toward a Continental.”
Savio bought the contracts of Italian stand-out Andrea Piccoli and Ecuadorian Jefferson Cepeda to the EF Training-EasyPost to cowl salaries after Drone Hopper missed three months of funds.
“It was a matter of constructing a alternative. Both promote Piccolo or do not pay the salaries on the finish of the month to all members of the group and so we opted for the primary alternative,” Savio mentioned.
It was a painful alternative, since Piccolo is one in every of many riders who Savio handpicked from the disbanded Gazprom-RusVelo group and who went on to attain two podiums for his new group within the fall.
