UCI paid with a counterfeit bank guarantee
One of the requirements for a team’s registration with the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) is a bank guarantee, and the UCI recently discovered that one of the bank guarantees they accepted for the 2010 season was counterfeit.
Brazilian Pro Continental team Scott-Marcondes Cesar-Fadenp São José dos Campos has already made the news due to their financial failings, but the latest development reveals that the crisis has always been much worse than the team has let on.
Cycling blog Pedaladas published a copy of an email sent by the UCI to the former riders of Scott-Marcondes which explained that “the bank guarantee seems to be a false document.”
The UCI had suspended the team in August when it became public that they had not been paying their cyclists through the summer. Former cyclist Luciano Pagliarini had refused an invitation in June to compete in the Brazilian nation championships because he
hadn’t yet been paid for the previous month. The difficulty of the situation eventually caused the 32-year-old to quit competitive cycling.
“It was a situation that generated a lot of weariness and disappointment,” said Pagliarini to Brazilian press Prologo. “I returned to Brazil with a good attitude and this was proven at the start of the season. Unfortunately things went astray and nothing
materialized. It was a shame.”
The bank guarantee is required by the UCI as insurance in the event of a team’s collapse. The team is required to set aside three months’ worth of salaries for the riders and staff. According to the email published on Pedaladas, the UCI discovered on November
11 that no money had been deposited to the Brazilian bank.
“They do not recognise its validity nor their responsibility,” read the email. “Group Santander [owners of the bank] informed UCI that they have already registered a formal complaint before the competent police authorities.”
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