The Festina cycling team, banned from the Tour de France on Friday after its manager admitted supplying riders with banned drugs, kept a £40,000 "war chest" for buying drugs such as the blood booster erythropoietin and human growth hormone, a police inquiry in Lille has been told.
French police are expected to seize the team's financial accounts to check a statement by its manager that, since he took over in 1993, 1 per cent of the team's annual budget of £4 million had gone into the "war chest".
The fund was siphoned off from the money paid by the team to the riders for good performances, according to the lawyer representing the team doctor, Dr Eric Ryckaert. The lawyer, Mr Arsene Ryckaert, (no relation) said: "The riders were made to put part of their bonuses into a secret fund which was intended to finance the purchase of drugs. The substances, as well as legal medicines, were kept at the team's headquarters in Lyons."
The doctor, as well as the team masseur, Mr Willy Voet, and team manager, Mr Bruno Roussel, have been charged with supplying drugs at sporting events and are in custody. Both have corroborated Dr Ryckaert's admission.
The inquiry, and the subsequent expulsion of the Festina team, was sparked by the seizure of a large quantity of erythropoietin and human growth hormone found in Mr Voet's car three days before the start of the Tour in Dublin. Mr Roussel told police through his lawyer that he, the team doctors and the masseurs had collaborated with the riders to obtain and administer banned drugs to improve performance.
The investigating team from Lille is to question the team's 25 riders, as well as the nine men who were expelled from the Tour at the weekend.
While the Festina scandal rumbles on, pressure is mounting on another team, TVM, which has been under investigation since early June by police in Rheims after the seizure of erythropoietin from one of the team's vehicles in March.
Mr Hein Verbruggen, president of the sport's world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, said: "It's for the Tour de France organisers, but if TVM are guilty of the same thing as Festina, the same measures should be taken."
TVM, a transport insurance company, claim that a third party may well be involved.