Team Sky set for takeover by Britain’s richest man, Sir Jim Ratcliffe
Team Sky is poised to announce a takeover by Britain’s richest man in a deal that will maintain the six-time Tour de France winners’ position as the wealthiest team in world cycling. Sources close to Team Sky have told the Guardian that an announcement is imminent. Team Ineos, sponsored by the controversial petrochemical company owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is expected to be unveiled within the next 48 hours. It is understood that Team Sky’s team principal, Sir Dave Brailsford, considered four strong offers, but none matched the resources offered by Ratcliffe and Ineos. With an increased budget, expected to be close to £40m, Brailsford is almost certain now to hold on to his leading riders, the reigning Tour champion, Geraint Thomas, the multiple Grand Tour champion Chris Froome, and the fast-rising Egan Bernal, who won France’s second-most prestigious stage race, Paris-Nice, on Saturday.
Confirmation of the deal with Ineos cannot come soon enough for Brailsford and his staff as they look to avoid further uncertainty in the build-up to this year’s Grand Tours – Italy, France, and Spain – which they are targeting. The quick-step team offers a different perspective on the soul of cycling. Richard Williams Read more Ratcliffe, said to be worth £21bn, grew up on a council estate in Greater Manchester and is now a resident of Monaco, where Team Sky’s leading riders and its head coach, Tim Kerrison, are based. He is also a keen cyclist and competitive triathlete. Sir Bradley Wiggins, winner of the 2012 Tour de France when riding for Sky, said the news was a “bonus for everyone at Team Sky.” “I’m aware of this guy, but I’ve never met him,” Wiggins told Eurosport. “He’s got a house in Mallorca and is really into cycling. He rides his bike, so I would imagine this is someone who loves cycling.
“It’s an ideal situation for Dave Brailsford because he can continue running out this team with all his plans and philosophies, and he’s answerable, you’d imagine, to one man who it’s his money, and it’ll certainly help that team.” “Dave will want to retain control,” Wiggins added. “It’s Dave’s way in terms of how he manages the team, the way he’s set it up, and I think he would have been reluctant to have another multinational company that came in and wanted it for the advertisement but would want the control.” Ratcliffe had previously considered a buy-out of Chelsea and invested £110m last year in Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup team. This relationship raised eyebrows, given Ineos’s status as one of the world’s largest plastics producers. The company’s move into professional cycling is equally likely to ruffle feathers, both due to its wealth and within a sport becoming increasingly aware of its environmental impact. Brailsford, however, appears to have shed the eco-evangelism of Team Sky’s 2018 Ocean Rescue campaign, which included a whale logo on the riders’ jerseys during the Tour de France, accompanied by the hashtag #passonplastic.
Brailsford has 12 riders under contract for next season, including Thomas, Froome, and Bernal, although all three were rumored to have been made by rival teams if a new sponsor had not been found. “You’d hope that we’d find something,” said the 2018 Tour winner Thomas during Brailsford’s negotiations. “We are in the best position to; we are one of the best sports teams around, not just in cycling.” Sky unexpectedly announced the ending of their sponsorship last autumn, and many believed it would be impossible to find a suitably wealthy backer to enable the team to continue. Recent and extensive negative coverage of Brailsford and the team, in the aftermath of stinging criticism from Ukad and the DCMS after the infamous “Jiffy Bag” investigation, was followed by the ongoing farce of Dr. Richard Freeman’s medical tribunal into testosterone use, which was adjourned a fortnight ago. Those factors allied to a tight timescale and an increasingly full sponsorship market within cycling, all appeared to be working against Brailsford.
