Current UCI president lashes out after document summarising investigation dossier is released
Writing to the national cycling federations after details of claims of unethical behaviour against him were printed, Pat McQuaid has blasted fellow UCI management committee members Igor Makarov and Mike Plant, and accused them and others of engaging in ‘gangster politics.’
McQuaid will go up against presidential rival Brian Cookson in seventeen days time at the UCI Congress, where the next president will be determined. He is fighting back after an anonymous document claiming to be a summary of a dossier into him was leaked and published by media outlets online.
In his letter to the national federations, McQuaid blasted the dossier as being libellous and said the claims in it are a ‘complete fabrication…totally untrue and not supported by a scintilla of evidence.”
He also claimed that it was a “nakedly transparent, totally contemptible” political agenda of his opponents and said that Makarov and Plant have thus far refused to hand over the dossier to the UCI Ethics committee.
The dossier was compiled by private investigators and brought up at a UCI management committee meeting in June by Plant, although McQuaid was able to prevent it being distributed to other committee members.
The leaked document is three and a half pages in length and claims to be a summary of the dossier. It includes allegations of unethical behaviour by McQuaid, former president Hein Verbruggen and the UCI, relating to Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, unnamed teams, the Vrijman report and other matters.
Various claims relating to these are made, with allegations of bribes and more being made.
Cookson has said that the claims in the document are similar to what were listed when the dossier was discussed by the management committee in June.
In his letter to the federations, McQuaid claims that one of two people are the source for the anonymous summary document released to the press.
“Given that Mr Makarov and Mr Plant are the only two people to have this document, it is clear that this ”anonymous” leak can only have come from one of them. Both of them have trumpeted their support for Brian Cookson in this Presidential election. That is entirely their prerogative, but this sort of despicable behaviour is not,” he wrote.
VeloNation received a copy of the document by post and also by email, but in both cases the sender could not be identified.
McQuaid goes on to blast his opponents and to accuse them of various examples of unethical behaviour. Ironically, given his condemnation of what he said was a libellous document against him, his own claims stray into the same territory.
“So far in this presidential election campaign, my opponents have employed lies, bribery, attempted extortion, attempted vote-buying, attempts at entrapment with hidden cameras and microphones, commercial interests threatening to bankrupt national federations if they didn’t withdraw my nomination and legal chicaneries to try to prevent you from even being given the chance to vote for or against me. This is not democracy. This is gangster politics,” he wrote.
He then called on Cookson to condemn the tactics, failing which McQuaid said that he considers the Briton supports such actions and that they would be a preview of how he would run the UCI “with his henchmen.”
He further claimed that the actions of Makarov, Plant and Cookson plus the dossier itself is doing “untold damage” to the UCI’s reputation.
McQuaid ended his letter by considering the possibility that he could be voted out by the delegates of the federations that he contacted. The statement is the closest he has come to admitting that he could be beaten in the election.
“If you do not [vote for him – ed.], I will accept your choice with good grace and I will leave Florence with my head held high. I will know that I have given my all to the UCI over the past eight years and that I have done everything possible to protect our democratic process.
“I challenge Brian Cookson to say the same thing.”