Following a report by the Daily Mail about former Tour de France champion Sir Bradley Wiggins having severe financial difficulties and being bankrupt, the Olympian claimed the report was sensationalist and incorrect. It also stated he was homeless and living on other people’s sofas.
“That was where the sensationalism came in, and that is where this story ran amok and continued for several weeks,” he told Lance Armstrong on the Forward podcast. Although he admits he has financial difficulties, he said the report didn’t fully explain the situation. When he spoke to Armstrong, it was the first time he addressed the report in public.
The backstory of his bankruptcy
“I was made bankrupt through a company. So I had three companies. My image rights company that handles all my image rights, endorsement deals, and various other things. Connected to that, I was part of XIX Entertainment, Simon Fuller, in 2014. They set up various joint ventures with various clubs and companies. Drinks suppliers, all different things, various endorsements,” he said. “These companies were all subsidiaries of the top company, which was my image rights company. Now that was done, as we see now through the lawyers, it was done purposefully so the top company would always take the hit if there was any trouble with the other ones. They should have been separate companies.”
Team Wiggins
The third company was a cycling team called New Cycling Limited, which ran Team Wiggins, he explained. That team was established to support the national track program.
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“That was the team pursuit, my last cycling career goal at the Rio Olympics. And that team should never ever have made a loss, it should never have made a profit. It was purely to pay the riders of the team, their wages, and handle the budget. That team was managed by XIX Entertainment and run on a daily basis by Andrew McQuaid, who was the manager of that team,” he explained. “And I was made a director, but I had no involvement, as I was still racing. The budget was £650,000 (C$ 1.1 million.) But in year one, for six riders, it spent a million pounds, so I had to prop that team up with my own money from Wiggins Rights.”
A complete mess
Wiggins went on to say that there was a lot of money coming down from the top company to prop up these ventures that weren’t making any cash at all. Meanwhile, the management was taking cash from their…
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