You’ve probably by now seen Juan Ayuso’s comments about his impending departure from UAE Team Emirates-XRG. ‘Bombazo!’ screamed one Spanish headline. You don’t need to speak Ayuso’s mother tongue to figure out that translation. Ayuso went in hard, dug a little deeper and then continued digging.

Here are some of the highlights – or lowlights, if you’re from the team. After stating that an agreement was made with the team to announce his exit after the Vuelta a España finishes, Ayuso said UAE broke that commitment on the first rest day to “damage my image once again.” He went on to accuse the team, who he’s ridden for since June 2021, of a repeated “lack of respect”. The 22-year-old said that he wanted to end his relationship with the team in a cordial manner, but “you can’t do that when it’s more like a dictatorship.”

There are a lot of lessons that ought be taken from Ayuso’s incredible interview. Ayuso signed a six-year contract in 2022 to theoretically take him to the end of 2028. Other youngsters with promising futures have also penned long deals with the Emirati team: Isaac Del Toro (2029), Jan Christen (2030), Pablo Torres (2030), and new signing Adrià Pericas, also until 2030. In the absence of a properly structured transfer or trading system, like employed in most other sports, there’s a very convincing argument that such long contracts should be outlawed, because once a rider agrees to stay in one place for that amount of time, they cannot easily get out of it. Yes, it’s possible – Remco Evenepoel is the latest big name to do so this year – but it’s often beset by an innumerable amount of complications.

If the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, don’t introduce a proper transfer system that allows riders to move between teams without the cumbersome bureaucracy of trying to break a contract, then riders – especially younger ones without many experiences of how the real world operates – should not be pressured into signing contracts any longer than three years. Five years might work out, but there’s a far greater chance it won’t.

This is on teams, too, for taking advantage of impressionable young athletes, selling them the dream and career trajectory before the realities of WorldTour racing – and life – has hit. As Ayuso’s case makes obvious, circumstances change. He was told when he signed aged 18 that he would be leading the team in the Tour de France by now, but with Tadej Pogačar naturally above him in the pecking order, that promise has ceased to exist. You cannot blame Ayuso for wanting to get out. Him and UAE found an agreement eventually, but it wouldn’t have been as acrimonious if he only signed a three-year deal in the first place.

Ayuso is on the move from UAE, three years earlier than planned. Photo: Zac Williams/SWpix.com

UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and other superteams like Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe and increasingly Lidl-Trek (the team Ayuso is reportedly set to join), should also stop hoovering up all the best talent, pretending that guaranteed success will lead to a harmonious group. These are real humans we’re talking about – not avatars on a fantasy league, where you can splash the cash and not have any care for the riders themselves. Having a team stacked full of winners will naturally create problems, and lead to situations where riders don’t feel like they're getting the opportunities they deserve. UAE cannot be blamed for having richer backers than anyone else in the sport, and equally they aren’t at fault for the way in which the wealth in the WorldTour is disproportionately spread, but having a team of galáticos – superstars in their own right – does not help anyone. Four leaders don’t fit into a Grand Tour squad – one, two at most, do. And that’s never going to change. 

If such long contracts become omnipresent, and a transfer system is not introduced, then there’ll be more frustrated riders like Ayuso making extraordinary comments. Because in our increasingly censored world, where riders’ true thoughts are rarely aired for fear of retribution, Ayuso’s brutal honesty was the result of the system that athletes operate in nowadays. A structure where they are caged up, stripped of their personalities and reduced to recycled soundbites. Riders are humans, too, with feelings and thoughts, and they should be allowed to express them. Perhaps not in the exact way Ayuso did – although he’d argue he was forced into it – but if a journalist asks a rider a question, they shouldn’t be afraid to speak truthfully, providing those comments have also been shared with their employers beforehand. It would be healthier for the sport if discourse was more open, more candid and more revealing. Pretending that everyone is a happy family when the reality is somewhat quite different doesn’t lead to the problem being fixed – it only exacerbates the issue.

This case has to be a lesson not only to the big teams like UAE who want to gobble up all the best talent and ambitious riders like Ayuso, but to the sport itself: this sorry saga doesn’t have to be repeated. And it was absolutely avoidable. Teams and riders can settle their differences and wish each respective party well without the need for explosives. It’s time for shorter contracts and a proper transfer system.

Cover photo by: Unipublic/Antonio Baixauli/Cxcling Creative Agency