RadioShack-Leopard team owner Flavio Becca has dismissed a report claiming that the name sponsor will leave he team at the end of the season as “pure speculation.” He admitted that the sponsorship contract expires this year, but added that no one from the company has been in touch with him to discuss it.

Yesterday L'Equipe announced that RadioShack would not renew its sponsorship, due to a mixture of corporate financial difficulties and problems within cycling and the team itself.

If Becca is to be believed, that story “is pure speculation. We don't yet know whether RadioShack will continue next year. What is sure is that the season will continue for a long time. We are constantly having discussions with our sponsors,” the team owner told Wort.lu

However, Becca did send out a thinly veiled warning to the riders on the team, “The team must prove itself. With good results, we can give sponsors a reason to be involved with us. No one from RadioShack has contacted me to discuss a termination of our co-operation.”

Becca also confirmed that a new sponsor will be presented this spring, but not a major one. “Instead it will be a smaller investor, who we will introduce in April or May. This has absolutely nothing to do with a possible withdrawal by RadioShack. It is simply a matter of a further sponsor who wants to join us.”