The management of French WorldTour squad Arkéa-B&B Hotels have said that a decision on whether the squad has the sponsorship it needs to to continue into 2026 will come as soon as early April. Compounding their woes, Arkéa-B&B Hotels are also locked in a battle for UCI ranking points to avoid relegation from the WorldTour for 2026-2028.
Backed by a series of different sponsors, the longstanding Britany-based squad started life in an amateur team in France's cycling heartland in the 1990s. They ascended to Continental league level in 2005, and joined the WorldTour in 2023.
Team boss and alma mater Emmanuel Hubert told L'Équipe that he is currently negotiating with their two main sponsors to try and prolong the contract beyond 2025, and he recognised that the coming months will be critical when it comes to the team's long-term survival.
"It's tough to have to go fishing [for sponsors] every day," Hubert said "but I love this squad and my 150 employees."
"Together with our sponsors, we're taking a responsible point of view, and we've got a six-month period prior to the end of the contract to say whether we're going or staying."
"So by the end of March or start of April, we'll know if we continue or stop by the end of 2025."
Hubert's insistence on clarity over financial backing comes two years after the debacle with former pro Jérôme Pineau and his project to create team for 2023, with Mark Cavendish as a team leader. The project collapsed in early December when Pineau's sponsorship plans disintegrated, a point so late in the year it made it tough for riders and staff to find alternative employment.
The Arkéa-B&B Hotels riders are conscious of the team's predicament but they are focussing on the races rather than panicking about their future.
"There are things we don't need to know about," 2024 Tour de France stage winner Kévin Vauquelin told L'Équipe. "It's up to us to do our work, and Manu [Hubert] and the management to do the rest."
"Manu Hubert is very confident about the future, and I'm trusting him," added team sprinter Arnaud Démare, a winner of multiple stages in the Tour and Giro d'Italia as well as Milan-San Remo.
"I only bring up the subject with journalists. We don't talk about it between ourselves. We're aware of the situation but we don't think about it every five minutes."
The WorldTour relegation battle
While the question of survival in itself is highest on their priority list, the WorldTour relegation battle is far from forgotten.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels are currently 19th in the three-year UCI team rankings, which would leave them out of the 2026 WorldTour by one spot.
2024 saw some real high points for the team like Luca Mozzato's second place in the Tour of Flanders, Vauquelin's victory in stage 2 of the Tour de France and runner's up spot in Flèche Wallonne. Hopes are high for fresh successes from these riders in 2025 and from Démare. The French sprinter is currently on 97 career wins and keen to hit the century this season.
Other riders to watch out for include Classics specialist Flórian Sénechal, young French talent Ewen Costieu and allrounder Clément Venturini.
"We are going to cut down on the number of days' racing compared to other years to try and be more competitive," Arkéa sports director and former pro Didier Rous told Dérnière Heure.
The Belgian newspaper pointed out that in 2024 Arkéa topped the unofficial teams' ranking for the combined total of kilometres raced by their riders: 314,324 kilometres. Their results and UCI ranking points was the problem.
Rous suggested that the WorldTour teams ranking mirrored team budgets, which vary wildly between the so-called 'super teams' and the lower ranked teams.
"We don't necessarily have the line-up to be competitive in all the races in which we took part. So we're going to refocus our efforts on scoring as many points as possible," he said of Arkéa-B&B Hotels race strategy.
