New black clouds are gathering on the future of Euskaltel-Euskadi as the financial crisis in Spain continues and has now spilled into the world of cycling.

The Basque team has a WorldTour license until 2016 but this is not enough to ensure the future as the crisis has forced Basque institutions to cut off funding. The team manager Igor González de Galdeano does not deny the problem:

"We are forced to seek a second sponsor to ensure a strong future for the team,” he said in an interview with El Correo. “Euskaltel should give us some answers since I cannot imagine the team without them but anything is possible. In the coming months I will focus only on this search for an additional sponsor, but the situation is difficult. Our foreign riders? Their points have been invaluable. Unfortunately they yielded as many points as we had hoped for but they have had bad luck due to a series of physical problems.”

The Tour de France will see the Basque team searching for stage wins and a quest for the white and polka dot jerseys while simultaneously trying to assemble the craved points.

“This Tour will be very important to us. We realize that we face a difficult situation and we will be in search of the wins that have eluded us so far this season. We will aim for the white jersey with Ion Izagirre, while Anton and Nieve will fight for the polka dot jersey."