Filippo Pozzato and his dream to bring an Italian team to the WorldTour

Filippo Pozzato has revealed his goal of launching a WorldTour team in the coming years, returning an Italian squad to the top level of cycling in the process.

The Milan-San Remo winner and organiser of the ‘Ride the Dreamland’ race series, comprising the Giro del Veneto, Serenissima Gravel and Veneto Classic races taking place this week, has had the goal of running an Italian WorldTour team since he retired in 2018.

• Giro de Veneto report

Alongside Davide Cassani, the former manager of Italy’s national cycling team, Pozzato confirmed that he is in the process of meeting with potential sponsors to determine whether he can make his dream a reality.

“My dream is doing an Italian WorldTour team but it’s very difficult to get the money for a WorldTour team now,” the former Italian national road champion admitted.

The last season that an Italian-run team held a spot in the WorldTour was Lampre-Merida in 2016, however, their licence was taken over by UAE Team Emirates for the 2017 campaign. Pozzato described the absence of an Italian WorldTour team as a “picture of the situation in the Italian federation."

The charismatic Italian was not blind to the difficulties that come with trying to set up a team at the top-tier of the sport, though. He added: “It’s not possible [to have a WorldTour team] immediately, every three years unless you take a licence but it’s too expensive.”

Any team that Pozzato would launch would begin life as a ProTeam, with the aim being to claim an elusive WorldTour licence in the seasons to follow.

"It’s not impossible, I’m working now with [Davide] Cassani for the new team. [After] the finish of the [Veneto Classic] race, in the next week we have a meeting with one big Italian company,” the 42-year-old continued.

One of the key factors that contributed to Lampre-Merida’s exit from the WorldTour scene was a lack of Italian investors and Pozzato is not pretending that the appetite in his homeland has drastically changed in the years that have followed. “When I have a sponsor, we’ll see,” he concluded.