Matt White makes surprise return to EF after 15 years: 'Like coming full circle'
The Australian spent the 2026 season as head of racing at Movistar, but he now makes an unexpected return to EF Education-EasyPost, having been fired by the squad in January 2011.
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Matt White has made a surprise return to EF Education-EasyPost almost sixteen years after he was fired by the team.
The Australian re-joins Jonathan Vaughters’ squad as a sports director after spending the 2026 season as Movistar’s director of racing. White had previously spent a long and successful period at Jayco-AlUla before leaving the team ahead of the 2025 Giro d’Italia.
“It feels like coming full circle,” White said in a statement released by EF Education-EasyPost on Tuesday.
“I started my career as a sports director here back in 2008. I’ve obviously spent a lot of time away, but it’s a team that I’ve always kept very close to my heart. It’s exciting to come back to a team that has so many talented young riders and a lot of ambition to develop this group over a long period of time.”
White became a sports director at the team – then known as Slipstream-Chipotle – immediately after retiring from racing at the end of 2007, and he was a key management figure in their first seasons at cycling’s top table.
He was dismissed from the team in January 2011, however, after it emerged that he had referred rider Trent Lowe to the former US Postal team doctor Luis Garcia del Moral for a VO2 max test at the Sports Institute of Valencia in 2009.
The team downplayed suggestions that White’s dismissal was also linked to an approach from the nascent GreenEdge team, which had not yet started operations. White would subsequently join GreenEdge on its formal launch ahead of the 2012 season.
White spent almost fifteen years with GreenEdge, establishing a reputation as one of the most respected sports directors in the peloton, with his successes including guiding Simon Yates to overall victory at the 2018 Vuelta a España.
Despite that pedigree, White was surprisingly dismissed by Jayco-AlUla shortly before the 2025 Giro, but he made a quick return to the WorldTour, joining Movistar’s revamped management structure last autumn. His lone season at Movistar saw the team win the Vuelta a España through Enric Mas.
The announcement of White’s arrival at EF comes shortly after it was confirmed that Richard Carapaz would leave the team to join NSN. The squad’s 2027 roster includes Ben Healy and Neilson Powless, while new arrivals include Tao Geoghegan Hart and Ivan Sosa.
“My passion is getting the most out of people,” White said. “Cycling has changed a lot, but there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: you’re dealing with human beings.
“Getting the most out of people is something I really enjoy. I think if, in 12 months’ time, we can sit back and look at the season and see that we've featured prominently throughout the year, especially at the pointy end of the races that matter, then that's a measure of success. And those races are the three Grand Tours and a lot of the Monuments.”
