February 19, 2007 – UCI President, Pat McQuaid and the UCI ProTour Manager, Alain Rumpf, met today in Lyon with ASO President, Patrice Clerc, accompanied by Gilbert Ysern. During this meeting, requested by the UCI President, the ASO maintained its position rejecting the UCI’s function and legitimacy as an international federation, and as such it appears to want to take control through its strategy to destabilize the situation.

ASO is in fact refusing the UCI the right to set participation rules for races entered on the UCI ProTour calendar. On this basis, which is totally unacceptable to the UCI, no agreement or compromise could be reached.
Talks between the parties were therefore unsuccessful.

The UCI will soon decide what action to take due to the deadlock created by ASO’s position, whereby it has decided to put itself in an illegal position vis-à-vis the sports movement as a whole, and can only regret the irresponsible behaviour of its partners, which will seriously harm the general interests of all those involved in cycling.