Katusha general manager Viatcheslav Ekimov reversed the decision of the Commission of the UCI licenses to strip the Astana team of their WorldTour licence for 2015. The Kazakh team must wait until December 10 to know their fate after many cases of doping.

"For me it is not right," Ekimov told Cyclingnews. "I’ve been thinking whether or not it is the right measure to sanction and suspend the licences for the whole team. If two guys do something on their own and it has been proved that there is no system, no organised programme, I think it isn’t the right decision to take the licence away."

"I have been in those shoes and I wouldn’t wish anybody to be in the shoes of Alexander Vinokourov right now", he added.

Ekimov was in the same position than Alexander Vinokourov in December 2012. The Licence Commission took the decision to deny Katusha entry into the World Tour because of ethical grounds. Ekimov wishes that severe penalties are applied, not suspension of a team.

“The team should pay a huge fine and maybe they should lose their points and their place in the ranking, but never suspend the team. I don’t believe that any team or structure exists that has a doping programme. There could be some individuals taking action but the team has nothing to do with this.”