The legal wrangling between Mario Cipollini and the patron of the Amore e Vita team, Ivano Fanini, is continuing, with the Cipollini camp demanding that Fanini create a ProTour team if Cipollini is to ride for Fanini next year. "Within two or three days, Ivano Fanini will know if Mario Cipollini will race with his team in 2006," said Cipollini's lawyer Massimo Martini to tuttobiciweb.com, after meeting with Fanini on Wednesday morning. "The meeting was interlocutory, but I believe I can confirm with certainty that there is no doubt about the desire of Mario to retire."
According to Fanini, Mr Martini said that Cipollini would only race for a ProTour team, something that is several steps removed from Amore e Vita at the moment. If Cipollini doesn't race for Fanini's team, the latter has demanded €600,000 from Cipo for breach of contract. "I'm calm," said Fanini. "Because the contract signed by Mario in 1998 guaranteed the rider being in my squad, otherwise he would risk damages of 600,000 euros. I think that Martini understood this and all the requirements are there to satisfy Cipollini. Among other things, to confirm the validity of the contract in '98, Mario already paid me a sum of 60 million old lira."
