Alonso’s bid to buy cycling team collapses

Fernando Alonso’s bid to take over a top professional cycling team has collapsed.

Early this month, the Ferrari driver announced advanced negotiations to buy the world tour license of the struggling Spanish team Euskaltel-Euskadi.

But late on Monday, Alonso - a keen amateur cyclist - confirmed that the talks have broken down.

"We’ve tried it until the end but it’s just been impossible to have a cycling team in 2014," he confirmed in a photo statement posted on Twitter.

However, the double world champion said he remains committed to setting up a cycling team, "if need be from scratch", for 2015.

"My passion for this sport, my will to cooperate and do my bit remains intact, so this is only the beginning of the future," Alonso added.

Full statement

"We’ve tried it until the end but it’s just been impossible to have a cycling team in 2014. My passion for this sport, my will to co-operate and do my bit remains intact, so this is only the beginning of the future. From tomorrow morning we are going to work on building, if needs be from scratch, a team we can be proud of. The best cycling team we can form, respecting the sport and with humility. As you may have observed I’m quite tenacious, and above all, I love and value this sport a lot. It possesses and transmits, as I said many times, values that I share, a set of values that I would like to help promote. Cycling and its fans deserve the best and now we have time on our side, time in which we’ll be very attentive to any circumstances we can learn from and, above all, that can make us better for next year. It wasn’t to be, but it will be! The adventure has just begun. Let’s look forward to 2015!"