The sponsorship exodus at the soon-to-be-rebranded Israel-Premier Tech squad looks set to continue, following reports that bike supplier Factor has terminated its deal with the team, whose 2025 season was dominated by pro-Palestine protests.
According to a report on Daniel Benson’s Substack, Factor will be replaced as the squad’s bike partner by Scott, who supplied Doug Ryder’s Q36.5 team with machines during the last three seasons.
However, Q36.5’s recent deal with Pinarello, which sees the Italian brand take on co-title sponsor duties at the Tom Pidcock-led team, has left Scott without an elite men’s squad for 2026.
Meanwhile, Israel-Premier Tech, who have applied for a UCI WorldTour licence under the ‘Cycling Academy’ name for 2026, ahead of a full rebrand which aims to strip the team of its ties to Israel, have not as yet unveiled any key sponsors for next season.
But Benson reports that sources have suggested that Scott’s bikes have already made their way to the team’s service course in Girona, though it’s unclear whether the Swiss brand will be taking on the role of title sponsor.
The news that Factor has ripped up its deal with Israel-Premier Tech should come as no surprise, after the brand’s CEO and founder Rob Gitelis publicly criticised for the team in the wake of the widespread protests that gripped the Vuelta, with Gitelis issuing the squad an ultimatum that “without a name change, without a flag change, we won’t continue”.
road.cc has approached Factor, which has supplied Israel-Premier Tech’s bikes since 2020, for comment on the reports, but is yet to receive a response.
> “It has become untenable for us to continue”: Israel-Premier Tech’s title sponsor steps down
Factor’s departure from the protest-marred squad also comes in the same month that Premier Tech stepped down as the team’s lead sponsor, claiming that the “core reason to sponsor the team has been overshadowed to a point where it has become untenable for us to continue”.
The Canada-based manufacturing company had been the title sponsor of the Israeli cycling team since 2022, but the almost constant wave of protests against Israel-Premier Tech’s involvement in cycling’s biggest races, amid the ongoing war in Gaza, appeared to have forced Premier Tech’s hand.
These protests, which escalated at the Vuelta a España, leading to stages being neutralised and the final stage in Madrid being abandoned after demonstrators stormed the finishing circuit, also prompted the squad to announce that it will rebrand for 2026, dropping ‘Israel’ from its name and changing the team’s nationality.
Last week, Israel-Premier Tech shut down its website and social media channels ahead of announcing its new identity and title sponsors.
However, while Premier Tech “took notice” of the team’s imminent rebranding, the company nevertheless decided to walk away from its sponsorship of the squad with immediate effect, a decision which came following “multiple discussions” and “careful assessment of all relevant circumstances”.
Earlier this week, it was announced that the Canadian brand will sponsor French women’s squad St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 in 2026, though it is rumoured that Premier Tech will also link up with a men’s WorldTour team, potentially as a title sponsor, with Alpecin among the squads linked.
Premier Tech had previously joined Factor, following the turbulent scenes at the Vuelta, in urging Israel-Premier Tech to drop any mention of Israel from their name and to stop racing as an Israeli-registered squad.
“It’s not a matter of right or wrong anymore,” Factor CEO Gitelis said at the time.
“It’s become too controversial around our brand, and my responsibility is to my employees and my shareholders, to give them maximum space with which to grow this company and make it profitable. Adding additional level of conflict or complexity, we just can’t accept that anymore.
“It’s no longer a personal thing of I support this or I support that. There’s just a certain level of controversy we just can’t have surrounding the brand.”
Israel-Premier Tech, as it was until this month, was not officially state-owned, but was instead funded by Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams.
However, the team has received some financial backing from Israel’s ministry for tourism and Adams – who attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, encouraged US attacks on Iran in June, and called on Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza – has described the team as “ambassadors” for Israel and a means of promoting a “more realistic vision” of modern Israel.
Adams, the team noted last month, will also step back from day-to-day operations related to the rebranded squad, in order to focus on his presidency of the World Jewish Congress.
Despite this rebranding attempt, it was reported this week that the Canary Islands have refused to host the planned finale of next year’s Vuelta a España if Israel-Premier Tech take part, regardless of their new identity.
Spanish newspaper AS reported that “the position of the Gran Canaria Island Council has not changed” on the team’s participation, due to Adams’ role as owner.
Meanwhile, as part of its winter overhaul, the squad is also expected to announce the signing of Tour de France green jersey winner Biniam Girmay, who has been widely reported to have agreed a three-year deal with the team starting in 2026.
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
35 thoughts on “Factor terminates bike contract with Israel-Premier Tech after year of protests, as reports suggest Scott set to sponsor rebranded team”
Public pressure makes sense
Public pressure makes sense and simply works!
Even though I did not always praise the way the protests were conducted, I am so proud of the result!
Cycling Academy. Run by a
Cycling Academy. Run by a Canadian Jewish man, with no formal ties to the tiny nation of Isreal, but who is proud of his heritage and said some hurty words because of a H@m@s t3rr0rist attack and kidnap of his fellow Jews; then these same t3rr0rists had the easy-to-offend, gullable, useful-idiots of the world (concentrated in Spain) destroy his cycling team. I fear this year will be no different. How has such antisemitism spread accross Europe? Sad times.
Wh@7 1s th3 p01nt 0f @11
Wh@7 1s th3 p01nt 0f @11 th353 d1617s @nd suc# 1n y0ur r@mbl1n65?
“no formal ties to the tiny
“no formal ties to the tiny nation of Isreal” – you havn’t even bothered to read his wiki page.
As the saying goes…
As the saying goes…
Antisemitism used to be about not liking Jews. Nowadays it usually means not being liked by them.
Oh FFS go ride a bike instead
Oh FFS go ride a bike instead of sitting on the toilet excreting naive hyperbolic statements regugitated from your internet echo chamber.
alexuk wrote:
Israel is 93rd out of the 193 nations recognised by the United Nations in terms of population, with a population much the same size as Sweden, Greece, Portugal and Sweden and much bigger than, for example, Libya, Denmark, Norway and Ireland, none of which countries I’ve ever seen described as tiny; territorially, with the occupied territories, it covers almost half of the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
It’s tiny in population and
It’s tiny in population and territory vs the countries that have gone to war to destroy it both directly and via proxies.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Also tiny in comparison to the countries that have massively funded it and supplied it with state-of-the-art weaponry, which, as it sadly has shown, allows it to pulverise civilian populations and their habitations into dust. When a country is getting $3.8BN in military aid from the US per annum and has the very latest fighter jets, missiles and a nuclear weapons capacity to fight against a population of whom a small number are equipped with pretty rudimentary arms then by all means support them but I don’t think the situation can sustain a “poor tiny little plucky Israel” narrative.
Indeed – but of course the
Indeed – but of course the difficulty is that in the past ample military aid was what kept them afloat against the regular armies of eg. Egypt, Syria etc. (And presumably is required to try to deter / contain threats from others like Iraq and Iran).
But … of course once you’ve got the big guns they tend to get used… And urban warfare tends to even out differences and massively increase casualties to the party trying to take a hostile area if they wade in. (Even modern tanks can become vulnerable to cheap and unsophisticated weapons there).
Perhaps the surprising thing was that that we didn’t see more use of heavier, less precise weaponry in eg. The Troubles? Of course going back there *was* heavy weaponry used in urban areas to counter an actual “uprising”, at Easter in 1916…
Firstly, the Arab countries,
Firstly, the Arab countries, over the period including 1967 and 1973 wars, were supplied with ample military and economic aid by the Soviet union including use of Soviet pilots by Egypt.
Secondly, we were quite prepared to ‘pulverise’ civilians during ww2 because our survival was on the line. It’s easy to take the road of sanctimony when you sleep safe and sound at night thanks to the violent deeds of your forebearers that gave you security.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
If objecting to the deliberate targetted bombing of hospitals containing newborn babies and sick children is sanctimonious then I’m quite happy to be called that. If Israel had used violence to preserve its survival then I would have no problem with that, if they hunted down and killed every single Hamas terrorist involved in October 7th I would say they were fully justified; deliberately attempting to wipe out or drive out the entire civilian population of Gaza has done nothing to achieve that aim and the massacre has had an entirely different, expansionist agenda.
Some terrible and unjustifiable acts were committed by the allies during World War II, I wasn’t aware that two wrongs make a right.
It’s war not a game of COD.
It’s war not a game of COD.
The de facto government of Gaza crossed into Israel with a brigade strength force and went on a murder-rape rampage. You would neither see this as a civil matter nor one deserving of restraint if the same happened to your country.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Kindly don’t tell me how I would react or assume my reaction would be the same as yours. If it had happened to my country I would want all of the perpetrators and those who funded and enabled them hunted down mercilessly and punished to the fullest extent permissible by law; if in a war situation I would shed no tears if they were exterminated like the vermin they are. I would not want the country/territory from which they came to be razed to the ground with the concomitant deaths of 65,000 people, including 20,000 children, and 160,000+ seriously injured, when (according to the IDF’s own estimate) 85% of those killed and injured were non-combatant civilians. If you’re happy with what has been described by the United Nations, Oxfam, Amnesty International, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and numerous others as a genocide then that’s a matter for you and your conscience, but don’t presume to tell me that I feel, or would feel, the same as you in any circumstances.
Perpetrators? Punishment? To
Perpetrators? Punishment? To the full extent permissible by law?
You should think about the difference between waging war and delivering criminal justice.
There is no way that the UK would treat a foreign state’s brigade sized incursion as a matter for the police.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
You obviously missed this bit: “if in a war situation I would shed no tears if they were exterminated like the vermin they are”.
In saying “by law”, incidentally, I didn’t just mean civil law, as I suspect you realised but chose not to acknowledge, but also international law as represented by the Geneva Convention and other instruments; you know, the laws against indiscriminately and deliberately targeting civilians that Israel has so manifestly and repeatedly broken.
International law didn’t
International law didn’t protect Israel from 7th Oct and dealing with the matter as one of ‘justice’, i.e., a police one, only allows for another incursion in a month, or six months, and then another after that.
The fundamental duty of the state is to secure its sovereign. There is no law or justice without the security of the state. This is why brigade scale incursion need to be dealt with by military means as acts of war.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Even wars have rules, the Geneva conventions and so on. Intentionally targeting civilians breaks them, as does deliberately shutting off non-combatant access to food, medical supplies and clean water, as Israel unquestionably did. No reasonable person would deny Israel the right to defend herself nor disagree that the October 7 attacks were an appalling atrocity. Israel had every right to seek to punish the perpetrators and defend herself against further attacks; that does not confer the right deliberately to destroy hospitals full of children or to shoot unarmed civilians queueing for food rations.
Germany was a modern,
Germany was a modern, industrialised nation, with an army, a navy, an air force and a civil defence. Gaza is a refugee camp where 50% of those trapped inside (trapped by the occupier, Israel) are children. There is no comparison. The Palestinians have been occupied for over 70 years and in the case of Gaza have been living under siege for 20 years. The German population during the war had the nation to defend it – and when it couldn’t they could escape the cities. The population in Palestine has no escape and no one to defend it. Gaza is a concentration camp, and pulverising a concentration camp is not ‘self defence’ – it is genocide.
Gaza has only been under
Gaza has only been under ‘siege’ the last 20 years because Hamas took control and immediately started firing rockets almost every day. Before that, there were tens of thousands of work permits where Palestinians would work in Israel during the day then go back to their homes in Gaza at night. Attacking Israel then demanding free movement isn’t reasonable. What other country do think think owes another unconditional free movement?
As for the Egyptian side, Israel doesn’t control that border. Egypt has said many times it doesn’t want the Palestinians. It was the same when Egypt occupied Gaza until 1967.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Not true:
Since the early 1990s, and greatly amplified after 2007, the Palestinian people in Gaza have been subjected to prolonged and severe restrictions on their movement that, in combination with tight restrictions on trade in goods, in effect amount to a blockade on the densely populated 365 km² Gaza Strip.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Also not true, Israel seized control of the Rafah border crossing in May 2024 and closed it and it has remained closed ever since.
The number of permits was
The number of permits was reduced during and after the second Second Intifada and after Hamas was elected. The remaining (approx) 20, 000 were cancelled after 7th Oct. You clearly think this is unreasonable, but why?
Can you source me the evidence that Egypt can and would give free movement across the border? Or are you just going to argue the technicalities of who ‘controls’ the border post-2024? That tells me you lost the argument.
Egypt occupied the strip from 1948 to 1967 and refused general free movement across the border.
Egypt’s current refusal to accept refugees from Gaza is one of policy. It’s nothing to do with Israel ‘controlling’ the border.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egypt-vows-block-palestinian-displacement-hardens-rhetoric-gaza-2025-09-05/
FYI this is the only ‘genocide’ in history where neighbouring countries, and allies, think genocide is preferable to evacuation.
Well, you’ve made two
Well, you’ve made two statements that are demonstrably wrong, namely that Gaza has only been under siege for 20 years and that Israel does not control Gaza’s southern border; when both of these “facts” are shown to be demonstrably wrong (as below, the first with evidence from the United Nations, for the second let’s take a look at the UK government website: “Border crossings out of Gaza have been closed to civilians and general traffic since the Israeli military took control of the Rafah crossing on 6 May 2024”) you say “that tells me you lost the argument”. Quite Trumpian.
Being Trumpian is refusing to
Being Trumpian is refusing to engage with the facts of Egypt refusing to take refugees. The technicalities of Israel ‘controlling’ the border since 2024 have no bearing on this. Instead, you’re litigating a minor technical point en lieu of the greater argument.
Egypt pursued this policy even when it occupied the strip, but it’s Israel you claim is the guilty one here.
Permitted movement of Palestinians in Gaza into Israel has always been as the security situation allowed. There was a lot more movement prior to the second intifada and especially before Hamas took control. The work permit numbers bear that out. Describing that as a ‘siege’ is sophism. By the same logic the UK is under ‘siege’ from the EU because there is no free movement of goods or people allowed.
Not to lose the point in
Not to lose the point in details – but the situation at European borders and those between the occupied territories and the rest of Israel were very different. A better comparison (but also different in many ways) might be another militarily-enforced border eg. some parts of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland during the Troubles – although that was more porous.
Another point is of course that the Palestinians in Gaza generally don’t *want* to be forced out to another country of course…
TBF the reluctance – or indeed outright refusal – of other countries to take in large numbers refugees is not a new thing. (An exception might be Jordan’s acceptance of extraordinary numbers of Syrian refugees).
Indeed it was very evident in eg. WW2 where Poland but also UK and the US were … not keen to take in Jewish migrants en-mass (see MS St. Louis, the failure of the League of Nations to get involved…)
Talking of movements of people, I think the migration numbers shown in the graph go a long way towards explaining the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah
If the Palestinians didn’t
If the Palestinians didn’t want to leave (a scene of apparent genocide) why would countries like Egypt or Jordan need policies of not taking them? Indeed the Arab world is almost unanimous in outwardly placing the possibility of a Palestinian state above the actual lives of Palestinians. Of course we know one reason they don’t want Palestinians is for security reasons (Black September). Israel is supposed to live with and border those people the Arab world deems too problematic.
You’re right that the border vis a vis Israel and Gaza is more analogous to a military enforced border. It was after all seized from a belligerent neighbouring state. What I object to is framing the conflict as one of civil rights, as if all the Palestinians want are rights granted from Israel. The Palestinians don’t want to be Israelis. The conflict was always about land with the Arabs not wanting a Jewish state. Palestinian self determination isn’t mentioned once during the original negotiations or even in UN resolution 242. It was never about a Palestinian state per se but just not having a Jewish one.
You’re right that Jews had problems finding safe harbour just before and during WW2, but it was not like the unanimous rejection of Palestinian refugees by Arab countries today, especially during their allegedly darkest hour of being genocided.
As for the migrations to Israel, about 1 million Jews migrated there after being expelled from Muslim countries in the late 1940s.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
Well, as to “apparent genocide” I’m not an expert – I just look at who is saying this and for what reasons. I think we should be more concerned about the killing and suffering and how a more positive future comes about. Partly for selfish reasons, as this conflict tends to spill out occasionally, and if the UK government is mostly supporting one side (with military assistance) that makes us all partly responsible and lessens our personal security…
I know the word itself is extremely important to some – certainly to many supporters of the Israeli government, who might see a Jewish state being accused of genocide as the ultimate slander. That is understandable * and it would be great if we could just leave this to history. Unfortunately that would be too late for a lot of people. (Even though the conflict and suffering are decades old the recent acceleration of killing and the polarisation of opinion mark this as a particular crisis).
I certainly agree that there has been a deal of cold political calculation by Arab countries around the Palestinians. Some were arguably at least as keen in this being a “problem for Israel” as they were in the interests of the Palestinians. And witness Iran’s interest in supplying weapons to Hamas.
* And that isn’t new either. See similar incomprehension by eg. some Serbs when Serbian or Serb-backed groups were accused of crimes against humanity in the Balkan conflicts. “But how can this be true – the others eg. Croat-majority groups were *actually* committing genocidal acts against Serbs – indeed were operating death camps in WW2″…
Nighttrain123 wrote:
The word you’re looking for is sophistry, sophism is a false but clever argument, sophistry is the use of such an argument. It’s ironic that you should accuse others of that when using such a clear example of it yourself. The UK can obtain whatever goods it wants from the EU provided duties are paid; similarly people can move freely between the UK and the EU upon production of a passport. Israel has controlled the borders of Gaza for decades and only allowed out those Palestinian workers it found useful (as a sidenote incidentally you should look at the way those workers have been treated in Israel, frequently told they can only use incredibly roundabout routes so that it will take them three hours to make a journey of 15 km to work, subject to countless roadblocks, innocent workers being shot on their journey to work on suspicion of being terrorists and so on). At the same time Israel has obstructed and/or banned essential basic supplies from crossing the border into Gaza, including medicines, baby food et cetera. I did some work for Handicap International in the early 2000s transcribing interviews with doctors (including Israeli ones) working in the Gaza Strip; they were absolutely in despair at the way Israel was banning them from obtaining medicines, sterile swabs and dressings, even artificial limbs and wheelchairs for the wounded. It is, and has been for decades, a siege.
The border post Second
The border post Second Intifada and definitely post Hamas could be described uncharitably as a ‘siege’. Before that, there was just a border like any country has with another; plenty of work visas but no free movement. It that was a ‘siege’ then many countries currently are in ‘siege’ from others. As I also said, Egypt was doing the same thing at their border (and even when they occupied Gaza).
Packed into your complaint is that the Palestinians should and must have free access into Israel, and the absence of this is presumably why Hamas was elected. In other words, if only Israel could grant enough civil rights the conflict would be solved.
I did not, of course, say
I did not, of course, say anything of the sort – my words are there for all to see. What I said was that your statement that if Gaza was under siege from Israel then the UK was under siege from the EU was just stupid, and it is. I said nothing about allowing Gaza citizens free access to Israel, but apparently it’s “packed into my complaint”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. It’s something you’ve simply made up.
Rather than addressing things that I haven’t said, why not address what I did say? Do you deny that Israel has been denying entry to Gaza of basic medical supplies and foodstuffs for decades, and if you don’t deny that, how can you say it isn’t a siege? Actually don’t bother, you’ll only make up something else I haven’t said and say that proves I’ve lost the argument. I’m out.
Whether we call it a ‘siege’
Whether you succeed or not in securing the label ‘siege’ in place or not changes nothing about the reasonableness (or not) of Israeli or Egyptian policies vis a vis Gaza border, which are empirical facts. Some can be good others can be bad.
It’s not clear once Israel is guilty of ‘laying siege’ to Gaza what policies and practices would roll the situation back to being not siege.
Similarly with the label ‘genocide’.
This mangling of language always comes from the same place. Words are used as weapons.
Nighttrain123 wrote:
If that’s a “border like any other” I won’t tarry to argue further. I’ll just leave this one for others (or references therein).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
Obviously are no easy answers or undisputed facts in this conflict. Although – admittedly from a long distance and being some generations from being a migrant – “what about trying less killing and abusing the other population?” always seems an option.
The long distance is the
The long distance is the problem; it looks like a civil rights conflict from the West because that’s what we know and are familiar with.
The reality is the conflict was over land, specifically that a Jewish state should not exist in the Levant, not that a Jewish state should exist and take in more Arabs and give them equal rights, not even that a one or two state ‘Palestinian’ state should exist. This was never asked for until after 1967.
Perhaps the conflict could be resolved by Israel turning the cheek more and offering appeasement? OTOH no concession it has made has gained it more security, only less.
It took the protests to make
It took the protests to make the brand toxic enough to make the sponsors step away. That said, there’s nothing new about the colonial-terrorist entity’s genocide in Palestine – they’ve been at it for many decades. The intensity varies, but they never stop. Both Factor and Premier-Tech ought to have known this /before/ they ever signed up.
I doubt many of us will be buying Premier-Tech services… but we should bear it in mind if considering Factor.
No decent person or entity or
No decent person or entity or corporation should associate itself with Israel’s apartheid, occupation and genocide.