Sky to end sponsorship of Team Sky cycling team in 2019

Sky will end sponsorship of its cycling team — Team Sky — at the end of next season, leaving the sport’s most ­successful outfit’s future hanging in the balance.

Following their best year on record, including a seventh and eighth Grand Tour victory at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France respectively, Sky bosses have opted to pull the plug after the end of their 2019 campaign.

Sky is adamant the decision is not related to the scandals that have circulated the team in recent years, but a spate of negative publicity, including the jiffy bag investigation involving Sir Bradley Wiggins, will undoubtedly have had an impact over discussions for the future.

There may be more difficult times ahead when former team doctor Richard Freeman appears before a General Medical Council tribunal in February. It was Freeman who received the jiffy bag at the 2011 Dauphine, which he later claimed contained the decongestant Fluimucil for Wiggins.

In November 2017, the UK Anti-Doping agency closed their investigation, saying they were unable to prove that the bag contained a banned substance.

Sky’s announcement this morning comes less than three months after media giant Comcast’s £30billion takeover of Sky. Team principal Sir Dave Brailsford now has the task of finding a new backer, although landing a sponsor able to spend the £24million that Sky ­funnelled into the team last season alone will be a tough ask.

Following the announcement this morning, Brailsford said: “The vision for Team Sky began with the ambition to build a clean, winning team around a core of British riders and staff. The team’s success has been the result of the talent, dedication and hard work of a remarkable group of people.

“While Sky will be moving on at the end of next year, the team is open-minded about the future and the ­potential of working with a new partner, should the right opportunity present itself. We aren’t finished yet, by any means. There is another exciting year of racing ahead of us.”

Team Sky are comfortably the richest outfit in the history of professional cycling, having been backed to the tune of £180m over the length of the partnership. The team were set up for the 2010 season with the aim of getting a British winner of the Tour de France. Wiggins achieved it in 2012, followed by Chris Froome’s four victories and, in July, Geraint Thomas. Their riders have won all three Grand Tours between them, 52 other stage races, 25 one-day races and 322 all-time wins.

Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: “We came into cycling with the aim of using elite success to inspire greater participation at all levels. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved.”