The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) considers it essential that the process for awarding UCI WorldTour licences remain fair and clear for all teams involved.
The UCI issues a reminder that for this, the Professional Cycling Council (PCC) had decided in Innsbruck in September 2018 to apply a sporting criterion for the allocation of UCI WorldTour licences based on the number of points accumulated annually in the UCI World Ranking by each candidate team (UCI WorldTeam or UCI ProTeam) over a period of three years.
At the same time, the PCC had decided that 18 UCI WorldTour licences would be awarded for the 2023-2025 period.
These decisions were taken unanimously by the PCC – which includes representatives of the AIGCP (teams), the CPA (riders) and the AIOCC (organisers) as well as the UCI – following a long and in-depth consultation with the different stakeholders.
The current regulation came into force on 1st January 2020 for a first cycle of three years (until the end of 2022).
Moreover, at its meeting of December 2020, the PCC confirmed that after an evaluation of the number of events organised during the 2020 season impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the points obtained during that season would be counted in the calculation of the sporting criterion for the period 2020-2022 and that 2020 would therefore be considered the first year of the ranking according to the sporting criterion.
Contrary to recent public reporting, no decision to modify the rules in force has been taken.
The UCI Licence Commission is charged with awarding UCI WorldTour licences on the basis of the rules in force. The procedure will take place in November, and the UCI points acquired up until 18 October will be taken into account for the sporting criterion.