MCQUAID ATTACKS ‘MAFIA CULTURE’ OF EURO FEDERATIONS

UCI President Pat McQuaid has created further divisions in cycling and sparked a major row after attacking Western European Cycling Federations, saying that they have a mafia-style culture when it comes to fighting doping.

Speaking in Holland on Friday, McQuaid said Anglo-Saxon countries such as Great Britain, Holland, Germany and Denmark had taken the right stand against doping but accused unspecified Western European Federations for ?accepting certain practices?. The interview can be seen in the cycling section of the Eurosport.com web site.

"There is a clash going on at the moment between two cultures, the Anglo-Saxon culture and what I might call the mafia Western European culture," McQuaid said.

"The Western European Culture is a culture that has to some extent, I won't say condones doping and condones cheating practices, but because of their culture in life, because of the way they deal with everything else in life, they accept certain practices."

"The Anglo-Saxon (approach), which would be here (the Netherlands), it would be Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark - is the complete opposite. And they have a completely different approach to the doping fight, and it's evident when you see the approach the teams have made - the German teams in particular there were a major problem in July - and the approach they have taken looking at the future and how they move forward into the future."

"And it is important, I feel, it is very important that at the end of the day the Anglo-Saxon approach wins out - because if it doesn't, then the sport is doomed."