The sponsor’s confidence to the management is the key according to Vincent Lavenu. The general manager of the AG2R La Mondiale team is in a good position to speak and to sing the praises about it: after two doping cases in less than a year, his team made the choice to suspend itself last year and did not participate to the Critérium du Dauphiné. Both the sport and sponsor entities of the team are members of MPCC, which allowed the sponsor to establish a course of action.
The interview with Vincent Lavenu, AG2R-La Mondiale manager
Yvon Sanquer, general manager of the Cofidis team, agrees with Vincent Lavenu. Trust must be total between the sport and the sponsor structures, around a course of action set from the start. However, Sanquer also insists on the fact that the sponsors are now well aware of the unavoidable concern that ethics represents.
The interview with Yvon Sanquer, Cofidis manager :
MPCC’s chairman Roger Legeay validates the ideas of Vincent Lavenu and Yvon Sanquer. Absolute transparency must be effective between the sponsor and the men it chooses to install at the head of the team. Especially since cycling is not always the chosen field of the partner. The MPCC’s “club of sponsors” allowed to get everyone around the table.
The interview with Roger Legeay, MPCC chairman :
Marketing Director of the Belgian Lottery (Lotto), Marc Frederix brings the contribution “representing sponsors” in this debate. And his vision is clear: the sponsor must protect itself against every bad publicity affiliated with its brand. Thus, in addition to agree on a directive with the management staff, the company Lotto, itself a member of MPCC, requires its employees to sign a code of ethics in order to cover itself as much as it can.
The inteview with Marc Frederix, marketing director of Lotto :
The transcript of the interview :
« If we’re talking about image, for the company like the national lottery, it is very important that there is an ethical charter, and that we can avoid all negative publicity regarding drug abuse, doping, etc. We impose the management that they, and the sport directors, and all the riders, that they sign the ethical charter, and that they are ambassadors of the brand, and as ambassadors of the brand, we cannot accept negative publicity around the brand.
I think that for some older sponsors, commercial sponsors, 10 years ago, all publicity was publicity, no matter if it was negative or positive. Now I find within our co-sponsors that they say “okay, the image of cycling is changing, and we as co-sponsors, we have to contribute to that changing image”. Today they even more ask an ethical approach of the team than 10 years ago.
The co-sponsors, the government and the company, we have had this doping free policy since 20 years in fact. It would be better to have solidarity, equality between all the teams. And today a majority of teams are members and a minority stays out of MPCC. Definitely it would be better that all the teams would be part of MPCC. »