Former International Cycling Union (UCI) president Hein Verbruggen has branded a report into cycling's troubled past as 'scandalously biased'.
Verbruggen, who was slammed along with his fellow ex-UCI boss Pat McQuaid in a Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) review, also accused current president Brian Cookson of having an obsession with removing him as honorary president.
Cookson has said that he would not be drawn into this kind of public conflict.
Verbruggen said that Cookson is in for a surprise if he thinks that he would accept this scandalously biased CIRC report, and added that the same goes for taking away his honorary title, the BBC reported.
The Dutchman said that indeed, the last word about the CIRC report has not yet been written.
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In a statement, Cookson said that he thinks Verbruggen's letter speaks for itself, adding that those who have read the CIRC report would understand where the UCI went wrong in the past, including the conflicts it needlessly got into and which seriously damaged its credibility.
Cookson claimed that he was elected to change the way the UCI conducts itself and he won't be drawn into this kind of public conflict.
In a letter of more than 3,000 words, published in a Belgian newspaper, Verbruggen has also accused Cookson of making comical attempts to avoid a face-to-face meeting, suggested that UCI director general Martin Gibbs is the organisation's real acting president, instructed Swiss lawyers to assess the Circ report and roundly dismissed the report's findings as lacking any factual basis for many of the opinions contained in it.
