ASO director Patrice Clerc announced on Saturday that there would be no more negotiations on the ProTour with UCI officials, after the governing body of cycling apparently turned down a compromise paper established with the help of the sports' sponsors.
"We deeply regret that the proposal, elaborated with much help of the sponsors, has been rejected," Clerc said. "We did not expect that decision." The compromise mainly consisted of having 18 ProTour teams (instead of 20) in the future, who would get three-year (instead of four-year) licences, in order to make the circuit more open to other teams.
