The Dutch city of Utrecht will pay the Tour de France organisers ASO four million Euros to host the Grand Départ of the event next year, Dutch media revealed last week, with an official document being published on Utrecht.nl.

"The community agrees to pay a financial contribution to ASO of 4,000,000 € (four million euros) from tax in the terms and schedule," the document, which is written in French, stated.

It then goes on to list the timescale in which the payments have to be made. The first installment of €1.5 million was made on 15 December 2013 and a further payment of the same amount was transferred on October 1. The final payment of €1 million will be handed over on July 5, the day after the 2015 Tour de France begins. The total amount of four million is almost double the €2.5 million paid by Rotterdam, when the Tour last began in the Netherlands.

On top of this, Utrecht must pay for the cost of the security involved, ensure that there is a no-fly zone over the race while it is going on, make free up to 2,000 parking spaces for the organisation and press and fit up to three kilometres of barriers for the start of stage 2.

The race will begin in Utrecht on July 4 and finish in Paris on July 26.