Former Int'l Cycling Union (UCI) President Hein Verbruggen has "launched a scathing attack on current incumbent" Brian Cookson, calling the Englishman "weak and indecisive as a leader and threatening to take legal action" should he face any sanctions as a result of the recent Cycling Independent Reform Commission review of cycling's doping culture, according to Tom Cary of the London TELEGRAPH. Verbruggen has "refused to resign his post as honorary president of the cycling's world governing body in the wake of last month’s CIRC report, which found that the Dutchman was complicit in creating the sport's doping culture, turning a blind eye" to misdemeanors, particularly those of the "disgraced" Lance Armstrong. Instead, after a few weeks in which he has largely kept his head down, Verbruggen has written a 3,500-word letter to the UCI’s management committee in which he "calls the report 'scandalously biased' and suggests it was only set up because of 'pressure from some (mainly) British journalists in order to find proof for their fabricated stories about 'complicity and corruption' that they had written in their books and articles.'" Verbruggen said that he "had no intention of resigning his title and would fight any attempt to see him stripped of it." Verbruggen wrote, "I will consider the withdrawal of my title to be a 'sanction' and I will NOT accept being sanctioned, especially not by such a person as Mr. Cookson!" (TELEGRAPH, 4/20). The PA reported Verbruggen also claimed the €2.8M ($3M) cost of the CIRC report has "effectively been wasted." After the CIRC report was published in March, Cookson said he would write to Verbruggen to "ask him to step down as honorary president saying he had made 'serious errors of judgment and wrong decisions.'" On Monday, Cookson said that he "would not get dragged into a public war of words" with Verbruggen. He said, "I think Mr. Verbruggen's letter speaks for itself. Those who have read the CIRC report will understand where the UCI went wrong in the past, including the conflicts it needlessly got into and which seriously damaged its credibility" (PA, 4/20).
