With positive drug tests in the 2013 Giro d’Italia for Mauro Santambroggio and Danilo Di Luca followed up by Matteo Rabottini’s positive in August this year, RCS are understandably wary of allowing Neri Sottoli ride the 2015 Giro.

There may be four or five wild cards for the event but as Neri Sottoli won the yearlong Coppa Italia, the winner of which is usually granted access to the Giro, they looked set to be there. Until other teams complained about how unethical the team was and a threat from the MPCC emerged after they were angered at how the team handled Rabottini’s positive and warned that there may be punishment for the Italian team.

“We don’t have any right to race the Giro. We won the cup, OK, but it all depends on RCS Sport. That cup win was great for us and our sponsors, but it does not give us the right to force our Giro participation,” general manager Angelo Citracca told VeloNews.

“If the organizer says that we can’t race given our past doping cases, we’ll accept that and move forward because in 2014 they already invited us given everything that happened before and when everyone thought they wouldn’t do so. We’d accept it without making a fuss.”

Mauro Vegni, head of RCS and Giro race director said that while the Coppa Italia winner is generally given the first wild card, they have to meet standards.

“The team,” Vegni said, “is subject to the usual economic and ethics criteria and that gives us the ability to accept or to reject it despite winning the cup.”

Citracca disagreed wit the MPCC’s view and called for the UCI to unify doping and punishments all under one umbrella, as Brain Cookson said during the World Championships.

“There’s no help with being a MPCC member, there are just requirements and no rights that come along with such membership. The rules are not clear, not respected equally.

“We joined because we are a pro team, if we are not in the MPCC, then we’ll have problems racing in certain races. You’re obliged in a sense to join. The UCI needs to look at that, if it is correct that the organizers are obliging teams to be part of an association to race. We are already paying a lot of money to the UCI for the passport and following strict financial guidelines, but then an association like MPCC decides if you can race?”

its not all bad news for the team though, as they look close to signing Alessandro Petacchi from Omega Pharma-Quick Step. The veteran Italian would be another great coup after signing Lampre duo Elia Favilli and Luca Wackermann.

“Petacchi’s got experience, he’s a big name and he could help our new young under-23 sprinter who’s turning pro, Jakub Mareczko,” Citracca told VeloNews.

“Whether or not he’d help for the Giro d’Italia, that’s for the organizer to answer, but he’d help with any race invitation, not just the Giro, given his palmarès.”