Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme does not understand the bill which the Dutch Cycling Federation has sent to the organizers of La Grande Boucle. "It is an absurd and baseless amount," he tells De Telegraaf.

The Dutch Federation wants the ASO, organizers of the Tour, to pay almost 140,000 euros to the association. It is a fee that anyone who organizes a race in the Netherlands must pay. Last summer the Tour started with two stages in the Netherlands.

"Out of nowhere, we received a bill of almost 140,000 euros from the Dutch Cycling Federation," says Prudhomme. "There is no explanation of how the union decided on this amount and what we are paying for."

Prudhomme is not going to pay that amount. "Never before, not in London, Monaco, Yorkshire or Rotterdam, have we received that kind of demand from the federation." 

The National Federation has filed an arbitration case against the ASO with the UCI.