Arkéa-B&B Hotels CEO calls on UCI to implement salary caps following team's demise

Emmanuel Hubert, CEO of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, has called for the UCI to implement salary caps after announcing the folding of his Breton team following the withdrawal of its main sponsors and failure to secure new partners.              

"Cycling is currently suffering from an exponential format, with very large teams taking us to new heights. Perhaps at some point, the UCI will also have to legislate on salary caps," Hubert said during an appearance on RMC's Bartoli Time on Sunday. "I don't know what format this will take, but in any case, something must be done, otherwise, we will die out."

The Breton outfit, which was founded in 2005 as Bretagne-Jean Floc’h, achieved 118 professional victories and took its first-ever Grand Tour stage win in 2024, when Kévin Vauquelin was victorious on stage 2 of the Tour de France. 

Vauquelin also ended his spell with the team on a high, finishing 7th at the Tour this summer, before his move to Ineos Grenadiers for 2026.

Operations officially ended last week when Hubert informed his 150 staff members of the confirmation, a difficult situation for all involved.

"When it's been going on for twenty years, it's always heartbreaking," said Hubert. "It's personally heartbreaking for me, but I can't help thinking about my 150 employees. We are a family. We spend more time together than with our own families."

The staff members could see the unfortunate writing on the wall with directeur sportif, Sébastien Hinault, explaining the feeling of dread whilst he was with the team in China for its final ever WorldTour race at the Tour of Guangxi. “We knew before we came here,” Hinault said. “Manu [Emmanuel Hubert] had told us that October 1 was the deadline, so we knew for some time that it was going to be complicated. All the possible lines closed off one by one, and unfortunately, the team has to stop.”

The team had been searching for new backers after both Arkéa and B&B Hotels announced they would not continue their sponsorship. Despite promising negotiations with potential partners, no deals materialised.

"The last few weeks have been quite complicated because we went from being in the red to almost in the green, and it always hurts when you experience negativity," explained Hubert. "At one point, there were two or three prospects in the final stages, and even a dozen throughout the year who were very keen on cycling, but the coin never fell the right way."

Hubert expressed frustration at the current economic model in professional cycling, where smaller teams struggle to compete with the financial power of the sport's biggest outfits.

"It's a shame, because today we have a sport that is still quite visible. There are only two sports that carry the names of partners throughout the sporting year: sailing and cycling," he added.

The closure of Arkea-B&B Hotels follows several other teams that have disappeared from the professional peloton in recent years due to financial challenges and the growing economic gap between the top WorldTour and lower-ranked WorldTour teams and ProTeam outfits. At the end of the 2025 season, many face uncertainty about their futures.

Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty's planned merger was the result of both teams seeking financial stability to enhance their competitiveness at the WorldTour level, but pending the merger coming to fruition, many staff members and riders will be without a job for 2026. Belgian ProTour team Wagner Bazin WB are another example of a side who are to fold following a bitter falling out between the team's General Manager, Christophe Brandt and the owner of the team's title sponsor, Philippe Wagner.