Common practice in football, the establishment of a release clause imposing on a formation the payment of a large indemnity if it wishes to break the contract of an athlete before the end of his initial commitment, begins to arrive in cycling.
La Gazzetta dello sport reveals that to secure the services of Tadej Pogacar, double winner of the Tour de France 2020 and 2021 and under contract until 2027 with the Emirati structure, a formation will have to pay 100 million euros.
An astronomical and largely dissuasive sum for the runner, considered the best current cyclist on the planet when he was only 24 years old.
Especially considering team budgets in professional cycling.
This amount is equivalent, for example, to more than three times the estimated budget of the Jumbo-Visma (approximately 27 million euros).
A salary of 6 million euros per season
The Italian daily reveals that the salary of the recent winner of the Tour of Flanders has now reached 6 million euros.
Since 2019 and his arrival in the peloton with the status of neo-professional, he has multiplied his emoluments by 75!
He received around 80,000 euros.
This salary also makes Pogacar the highest paid rider in the peloton.
And by far since two other stars of the pedal, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel receive around two million euros, respectively at Jumbo-Visma and Alpecin-Deceuninck.
Already impressive amounts but which remain very far from those practiced in other highly publicized sports.
For comparison, the two Belgians earn about the same amount as Cengiz Ünder (250,000 euros gross monthly) according to the revelations of L'Equipe.