In a press release Thursday the association explained that if the UCI intends to introduce more races to its WorldTour calendar, which already consists of 27 events, then it would not agree to required participation for every one of the 18 top teams.

Rumours have it that the UCI plans to swell its WorldTour calendar in 2017 as part of its controversial reforms by adding races to its calendar. The RideLondon-Surrey Classic in August has been rumored to be among the new events. Additionally, the UCI may add events in the U.S., as well as the Tour of Qatar and Tour of Oman in February, and the Abu Dhabi Tour in October.

However, teams may not go along with the UCI if participation rules are not sorted soon.

In a June 23 press release, following a Pro Cycling Council (PCC) meeting, the UCI said that all of these WorldTour events would be required races for the WorldTour-level teams. This is currently the situation with the UCI’s 27 events and 18 teams, creating logistical problems for some teams with overlapping events at times.

“On the contrary, it was confirmed that newly-promoted WorldTour events bear the full responsibility for securing participation of at least 10 WorldTeams with no coercive mechanisms,” said the team’s group on Thursday according to Velonews.

“The above has profound practical consequences as the 2017 WorldTour calendar, which was approved by the PCC on June 22nd was done so under the premise of no mandatory participation in newly-promoted WorldTour events. AIGCP consequently maintains that any subsequent alteration to these participation rules necessarily calls into question the related decision on the 2017 WorldTour calendar.”

The reforms would also diminish the number of teams in the WorldTour from 18 to 17 by 2017 and to 16 by 2018. They would allow the top-ranked Professional Continental team to enter the WorldTour and likewise, for the lowest ranked WorldTour team to be relegated.

The AIGCP teams group went along with the decisions, but found “a significant misrepresentation of one key decision.”

The group’s release read, “The AIGCP maintains that it is not the case that the PCC approved the principle of setting up for newly-promoted WorldTour events ‘[…] participation rules which will ensure that a minimum of 10 UCI WorldTeams take part […]’ nor is it the case that the PCC agreed to examine such a proposal ‘[…] at the next meeting of the PCC.’”

All appeared to be going smoothly for the governing body and its 2017 reforms until a few days ago.