L’Équipe have reported that some of the riders and staff on the Cofidis team are unhappy with the style of management used by Yvon Sanquer, the man credited with bringing Cofidis back to life since he joined in 2012.

The French paper reports that the staff have no confidence in Sanquer and he “goes behind everyone’s back, even to the extent of checking tyre pressure himself.” The paper says relations have gone “beyond the point of no return.”

Names are already been thrown around to replace the Frenchman, who is expected to be sacked from his post soon. BMC directeur sportif Yvon Ledanois, Lampre DS Philippe Mauduit and former Cofidis pro and now TV pundit Cédric Vasseur are being mentioned as possible replacements.

Sanquer knocked back these suggestions, telling L’Équipe: “I wouldn’t be in the middle of focusing on recruitment for next year if I was on the way out.” In addition, Thierry Vittu, director of human resources and communications at the French credit company that owns the team, described the reports of unrest as “unjustified and unfounded rumours”.

Vittu also played down links with rumoured replacements for Sanquer. “There are no plans for anyone to leave. I come into contact with a lot of people all the time, including Yvon Ledanois, but that has no link with the team,” he stated.

Vittu did confirm that there is tension in the team and he has twice spoken to Sanquer about attempting to diffuse it, but he says Sanquer is not the cause of the tension. 

“There is some tension,” he told L’Equipe. “But Yvon is someone who is very demanding, both of others and of himself. Some are finding it difficult to put up with that. But that’s Yvon’s style of management. He feels that he needs to get right into the details.”

Cofidis has three WorldTour wins already, all coming from star rider Nacer Bouhanni. That is the same number of wins Astana and Etixx-QuickStep, while only BMC, Sky and Tinkoff have more at the WorldTour level.