According to Times Media, the telecommunications company MTN is withdrawing its sponsorship of the MTN-Qhubeka team that impressed with some great performances at the Tour de France. The company’s group corporate affairs executive Chris Maroleng said that the company have spent around R100-million (€7.1m) sponsoring the professional outfit since 2013.
Maroleng said: “Considering the tough operating environment in the telecommunications industry we’ve really had to reassess‚ not just the Qhubeka sponsorship‚ but a number of other engagements we feel don’t have a return on that investment at the levels of comfort to us‚” he told Times Media in an interview in Johannesburg.
Maroleng also said: “We had indicated to them we are reconsidering our levels of engagement and then I think the actual communication was between our marketing guys post Tour de France to say actually we have now decided that we will be ending that partnership.”
“It was a big deal to us to end our engagement with Qhubeka because it represented to us not just a South African brand‚ but it also represented to us a Pan African brand.”
The MTN-Qhubeka team manager Doug Ryder feels that the future of the team should be secure. He said “The team has many options going forward‚ huge interest as you can imagine‚ so the future of the team is incredible. There’s no issues there.”
During the Tour, the team who had received a wild card entry, took 14 top-10 finishes, a stage win through Steve Cummings, finished fifth in the team classification and the Eritrean rider Daniel Teklehaimanot held the King of the Mountains polka dot jersey for a few days.
