Cédric Vasseur: Intermarché and Lotto merger is a 'light of hope' for Cofidis
Team boss confirms contract extensions for two key riders and talks about the relegation fight his squad is facing
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Cofidis team boss Cédric Vasseur has stated that the likely merger between Intermarché -Wanty and Lotto feels like a ‘light of hope’ with his team facing a tough relegation battle to stay in the WorldTour.
Only the top 18 teams in the UCI will be granted WorldTour licenses for next year, and even with Arkéa - B&B Hotels on the brink of collapse at the end of the year, with both title sponsors set to leave, Cofidis are hanging on a knife-edge. The team currently sit 19th in the rankings, and although that might make them provisionally safe, Uno-X Mobility are closing and haven’t given up hope of making the WorldTour next year - as team boss Thor Hushovd confirmed to us during the Tour.
Vasseur’s team has endured a difficult couple of years. They won only five times last year and currently have six victories this season. Despite a host of new signings at the start of 2025, including Alex Aranburu, Simon Carr, Emanuel Buchmann, and Dylan Teuns, there’s been no uptick in results.
It hasn’t been officially confirmed, but all indications and reports from Sporza are that Intermarché and Lotto will merge for next year, meaning that one existing WorldTour team will combine with one of the teams ahead of UCI Cofidis in the ranking, which effectively bumps Vasseur’s team up one spot.
“We know that cycling now requests a lot of budget, and those two teams, like a lot of teams, are struggling to finalise the budget. If it’s happening, it shows that you need to be a really big structure to be in the WorldTour,” Vasseur told me during the Tour de France.
“We know that we have to fight in order to be in the top 18 teams, with or without the fusion, but it’s true that if two teams are merging together, then it would give one more spot, and for us, that can only be good news because we’re really at the border and we’re struggling a bit. This is like a light of hope that we can still fight. We’re having a lot of trouble here. Bryan Coquard is out, and we’ve not had a lot of points since the start of the Tour. We’re also busy preparing for the second half of the season with Simon Carr and Milan Fretin,” the Frenchman added.