With only 17 teams in World Tour, the race organizers may invite five teams on grand tour and eight teams on other World Tour races. Indeed, Mauro Vegni, the director of the Giro di Italia, told CyclingNews about it. He would like to give a wild card invitation for the Corsa Rosa to Bardiani-CSF, Andiron Giocattoli, Nippo Vini Fantini and Neri Sottoli. Four teams are applying for the last one invitation: Team Europcar, Team Colombia, Caja Rural or UnitedHealthcare, who hired Daniele Ratto and Marco Canola this winter.

"As usual, we'll announce the wild cards in mid-January. There will be five places this year after Europcar did not make it into the WorldTour," Vegni told Cyclingnews. "We're evaluating the request of every team that has shown interest for the Giro d'Italia and our other races. Last year we explained our reasons for selecting four Italian teams for the wild card places, saying that the Giro d'Italia would help the Italian teams in a difficult financial moment. That will continue for 2015. However we've also got to look internationally and continue to develop the Giro d'Italia globally. As a result I think one wild card invitation will be given to a team from outside of Italy."

About Neri Sottoli, Vegni explained that this team won the Coppa Italia and with this victory, they received a will card invitation for the Giro, even if there were some doping cases: "I think we've got a kind of moral obligation to help Italian cycling, just as they do in France, Spain, Belgium and anywhere else. That includes the Neri Sottoli team. They won the Coppa Italia and they'll be judged like any other team. The Neri Sottoli doping case was in the summer, not during the Giro d'Italia. And to be honest, the stark contrast between the MPCC position on Neri Sottoli and on Astana made me laugh. Mr Legeay (and his MPCC members) voted to suspend Neri Sottoli for six months but they only had one case of doping in 2014."