QuickStep-AlphaVinyl boss Patrick Leferet said he is considering building a team structure outside of the main World Tour team he oversees, making women's team NXTG-Experza a "priority."

According to his weekly column in Het Nieuwsblad (opens in new tab), Lefebvre said he is stepping away from the World Tour team and concentrating on the Dutch women's development team NXTG, which he co-owns and which Experza has co-sponsored for 2022.

The veteran team boss said the team's ambition is to step up to the Women's World Tour in 2023. He contrasted the team's natural growth with the fact that World Tour rival UAE Team Emirates bought top women's team Ale BTC Ljubljana this season.

"At the moment my priority is the women's team NXTG. Together with team manager Natasha den Wouden, we are looking at how far we can jump in terms of budget. At the moment we can't get to the World Tour, but that is our ambition for 2023." [The minimum wage for ladies will increase to 32,100 euros per year starting next year, which is equivalent to the minimum wage for a men's professional team. The goal is to bring men's and women's wages on the World Tour to the same as soon as possible, and the minimum wage will soon be 40,045 euros.

"Don't get me wrong: there are many very good riders who deserve more than that.

"If we had the money, it would be easy: we would buy the women's team Ale BTC-Ljubljana right away, like the UAE Emirates did. But I think what we are doing now - sending promising riders to the World Tour - is a much nicer and healthier concept."

Lefevere is also a road and cyclocross junior world champion on the Acrog-Tormans, the team that Remco Evenepoel and Bora-Hansgrohe neo-pro Cian Uijtdebroeks raced on in their junior years. He also expressed interest in British teenager Zoe Bäckstedt, who rides for the Acrog-Tormans, the team that Cian Uijtdebroeks raced for as a junior.

"That talk is ongoing," Lefebvre wrote. 'But there are many candidates on the market. We intend to establish a structured cooperation with that team as well. Unofficially it already existed - we housed Evenpoel there for a while - but now we intend to make it more concrete."

Lefebvre also wants to partner with another Tormans-sponsored team, a cyclocross team currently led by Corné van Kessel and Quinten Hermans. It was announced last week that this sponsor will separate from Intermarché Wantigovert and join the Quick Step-Alfa Vinyl structure starting in 2023 (Intermarché Wantigovert will maintain its cyclocross team under a different name).

This news was followed by reports that Alpecin-Phoenix swooped in and signed the team's two top stars and two young riders to contracts for the upcoming season, but Jan Tormans told WielerFlits (open in new tab) that the move to Quick Step Lefebvre's new team will be done regardless.

Lefevere said that the idea of having a Continental feeder team (a role that Tormans-sponsored teams play alongside their cyclocross commitments) would be beneficial for QuickStep-AlphaVinyl.

"If you have to ride three programs at the same time, with dropouts at any time, even if you have 31 core riders, you could be in trouble," Lefebvre wrote. 'That's what we're going through right now. The solution' is to do what teams like Jumbo Visma and DSM are already doing

"If we incorporate a continental-level training team into the team structure, we can train promising riders there and transfer them to the 'A team' for specific races outside the World Tour.

"We could then have them move to the "A team" for specific races outside of the World Tour.

"In an ideal world, Toman would be our continental team. Then we would be able to compete in cyclocross in the winter and serve as a "training ground." But I keep hitting the same nail - everything revolves around the budget.

"Ideally, next year Quick Step Alpha Vinyl would have a youth team, a continental level team, and elite girls and boys at the top of the pyramid. But as I said, there is always an accountant between dreams and action."