A race can have the money and, at the same moment, not have the money. It sounds like a paradox, but it is probably one of the least understood economic issues in contemporary professional cycling. And perhaps also one of the most important.

In the previous article we described the growing gap between the obligations weighing on organizers and the timeframes within which many of the resources needed to support them actually become available. The next step, which we now try to clarify, consists of giving an economic name to the problem. That name is working capital. We are not talking, at least not necessarily, about races operating at a loss. We are talking about events that can have a balanced economic plan, public contributions already allocated, sponsorships subscribed and programmed revenues sufficient to cover costs, but which must advance a significant portion of expenses before they can actually dispose of revenues. And it is an enormous difference.

UCI regulations make the problem particularly evident. Article 1.2.076 of the UCI Cycling Regulations, Part I, in the February 2026 version, establishes for the main professional road categories that the participation fee owed to teams must be paid within thirty days of the issuance of the relevant invoice, which can be validly issued from the day following the conclusion of the race. In case of unjustified delay, default interest of 15 percent per annum is provided for and, where the conditions provided by the regulations apply, additional penalties; teams cannot become involuntary financiers of organizers. But precisely because of this, the question arises that the system should begin to ask itself: if it should not finance the team, who finances the organizer?

Let us take a purely illustrative example. Imagine a race with a total cost of one million euros and resources already formally identified for the same amount. If within thirty days following the event 750 thousand euros must be paid between teams, hotels, television production, security, technical services, personnel and suppliers, while at that date only 300 thousand euros have actually been collected, that race does not present an economic loss of 450 thousand euros; it will present a temporary financial requirement of 450 thousand euros.

The distinction is not semantic, it is pure business economics. If the remaining 700 thousand euros arrive in the following months, the profit and loss statement of the event may close in perfect balance, but someone will have had to finance those 450 thousand euros in the meantime. Historically that someone has often been the organizer himself: own assets, bank loans, shareholder advances, consolidated relationships with suppliers willing to wait. It is a model that becomes progressively more fragile as security, television production, logistics, health services, start and finish facilities, specialized personnel, UCI compliance and organizational standards increase.

There is an Italian figure that deserves particular attention: on March 10, 2026, the Board of Directors of Sport e Salute allocated 2.5 million euros to the Italian Cycling Federation for the project "Organization of professional cycling races at national level," providing that the same amounts be recognized to the Professional Cycling League.

The same resolution provides, however, that the contribution be disbursed in quarterly installments, according to the timeframes with which Sport e Salute in turn collects the state contribution dedicated to it. It is an apparently administrative detail that instead tells much. A resource can be allocated, assigned and have a perfectly identified destination without yet being materially available. The time of allocation is not necessarily the time of cash, it is exactly what happens along a significant part of the organizational chain.

The answer cannot be to ask teams to wait, that would be wrong, and the answer cannot even be: ask the Public Administration to give up controls, guarantees or accountability. It is necessary to build a financial bridge between these two timeframes.

A first possibility would be to provide, in public programs dedicated to cycling events, a quota of advance following the act of concession, naturally subject to the conditions and guarantees required by the financing entity. A second path could be a revolving fund of the League or the federal system. Not a new grant, but temporarily available capital: the fund advances a portion of the resources needed by the organizer who possesses certain requirements and is replenished when contributions or revenues already formally acquired arrive. Even more interesting could be a national agreement with one or more financial institutions to advance already accrued receivables, sufficiently documented and legally assignable. Factoring and bank advances would thus cease to be tools negotiated individually by the single organizer and would become system tools, built on the specific characteristics of professional cycling.

There exists, to tell the truth, a fourth possibility: a guarantee fund. This possibility is perhaps the one with the greatest multiplier effect. Federation, League or other institutional entity would not necessarily have to make the entire necessary capital available. They could guarantee a portion of it, facilitating access to credit for economically sustainable organizers but temporarily exposed on the financial side. Of course, none of these tools should transform itself into a mechanism for artificially keeping structurally insolvent organizations alive. Rigorous criteria would be required: formally granted contributions or sufficiently certain receivables, verifiable financial statements, regularity of previous payments, credible budgets, limits on advances and adequate sustainability parameters.

The issue is all here and is substantiated in the difference between assistance and industrial policy. The first covers a loss, the second intervenes on a financial imperfection of an economically sustainable activity capable of producing value. It is not coincidental that precisely in 2026 the UCI launched an international consultation on the future of professional cycling, expressly indicating among the topics the economic model. The phase of collecting contributions concluded on April 30 and a first summary has already been submitted to the bodies of professional cycling, with a view to defining the lines of a possible reform. Perhaps part of that discussion should also start from here.

We have built rules to ensure that teams get paid. Right. We have increased safety standards. Right. We ask for better television productions, professionalism, services, sustainability and organizational quality. Once again: right! But if we want all this to continue to exist, we must also ask ourselves a less spectacular and much more concrete question: who finances the sixty, ninety or one hundred eighty days during which a race has already incurred its costs but has not yet collected all its revenues?

Because the future of cycling will not depend solely on the ability to find more money. It will also depend on the ability to ensure that the money that already exists is available when it is needed.