Arkéa-B&B Hotels team manager Emmanuel Hubert has admitted that the French WorldTour team is in 'mortal danger' as he desperately searches for new sponsors or hopes his current backers will somehow help him survive beyond the 2025 season.
Hubert created the Brittany-based team in 2005 and secured a place in the WorldTour in 2023, but has struggled to score ranking points and faces relegation to ProTeam level, or could close completely.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels also sponsors a women's ProTeam but faces a battle for survival.
"Our situation is unfortunately very simple. All contracts with our partners will end at the end of 2025," Hubert told French newspaper Le Parisien.
"I'm talking with our current partners. I think I'll have an answer by the end of April, then it'll be stop or continue.
"I don't know whether our partners want to continue with us or not, but I'm acting as if they choose to stop. To survive in today's cycling world, you need more money. Even if our current partners continued, they wouldn't give any more than they offer already, and that wouldn't be enough, so I have to look elsewhere."
Hubert was apparently close to securing a major French sponsor, only for the deal to fall through. He admitted he is looking for €25 million, with the clock ticking.
"I won't name names. It was a very large French company. It was a close call. And the international situation didn't help," he said, citing the global economic uncertainty.
"The nights are short, and the days seem to be getting shorter too. I've never been home so little because I spend a lot of time searching for a sponsor.
"We can't procrastinate. My team is in mortal danger. Especially if, by mid-June, we need to get a closing. At that point, if it's still a no, we'll have to be clear-headed. It would be almost unheard of to close something after that. It happened once to Jean-René Bernaudeau, who signed with Europcar at the end of the summer of 2010. But this kind of deal to save the house is a miracle."
Hubert is looking for a major partner and is ready to welcome new expertise, and so perhaps share or relinquish team ownership. Decathlon followed a similar process after it sponsored the AG2R La Mondiale team.
"There are things that can't continue. The single-managerial model, where you simply own the team, is dead," Hubert suggested.
"Partners need to bring their expertise, not just money. They have skills we don't possess. That's really what I want, and that's what I put in my presentation.
"We also need to change other things to find money. Ticket sales are impossible unless you race on closed circuits, I don't believe in that. The solution could lie in young athletes. If you train an excellent young rider, they could, even if they change teams, bring in royalties each year for their development team. This would avoid depending solely on a sponsor and would promote talent development, a true virtuous circle."
The 2025 Arkéa-B&B Hotels men's roster includes Kévin Vauquelin, sprinter Arnaud Démare, Luca Mozzato and Victor Guernalec.
23-year-old Vauquelin won stage 2 of the 2024 Tour de France, alongside the 2025 overall Région Pays de la Loire Tour and Etoile de Bessèges. He could be the future leader of the team, but Hubert knows he could decide to move to another team for 2026.
"Everyone's contract ends this year. Maybe some have already signed elsewhere. I can't blame them even if I don't know anything," Hubert claimed.
"I often say: 'Anyone who is afraid should leave.' If guys have decided to leave, they should tell me, so I know what to expect when I approach possible partners. I don't want to include a rider's name knowing that he's already found another team.
"There's a DNA in the team. We've instilled a lot of values and helped people develop as human beings. We shouldn't just talk about the riders. Our team is 150 people who risk finding themselves unemployed. So 150 households.
"Because of our values, if in less than two months we haven't agreed on anything, I'll tell people, many of whom are friends, 'Look for work elsewhere. I can't promise you anything.'
"If I could just get a budget of 25 million, I could also start a five-year cycle in ProTeam (2nd division) to grow slowly. There are examples that work, like Uno-X or the Swiss team Tudor, who signed Julian Alaphilippe."
