Bjarne Riis has lost hope that the NTT Pro Cycling team will continue racing until 2021.

In an interview with the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet (opens in new tab) published on Monday, the team manager admitted that it is "not very" realistic to believe the team will be saved after NTT cuts off its support.

"At the moment there is no team that I will lead next year. That's the status quo. I don't have a sponsor on hand right now, and it's getting late in the day, so it doesn't look like a very good situation," Riis said. [Whether that sounds pessimistic or not] I don't know right now. The status quo is the status quo, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Asked if it is realistic to find new sponsors to keep the team alive, he replied: "No, not really. It's just a shame because cycling has great potential for companies looking for maximum exposure."

He added: "I'm not sure that we can find a new sponsor to keep the team alive.

Riis, a former rider and manager of the Tinkoff Saxo team, joined NTT Pro Cycling (formerly Dimension Data and MTN-Qhubeka) earlier this year. Initially it was said that Vertu Cycling, the company he runs with Lars Seel Christensen and Jan Beck Andersen, would own one-third of the team, but Danish media reported in September that the process had not gone forward and that Doug Ryder remained the full owner.

After leaving the Tinkoff-Saxo team in 2015, Riis had long sought a return to a professional cycling team; the "Riis-Seier" project was launched in 2016 and took over Virtu's men's and women's teams in 2017, but ultimately the NTT waited to return to the WorldTour via an existing team. However, despite the Tour de France's Copenhagen Grand Depart being postponed to next year, he was unable to find sponsors in his home country, claiming that without them his plans would not work.

"Well, I can't afford it, and I don't understand why people take it for granted that Lars pays for everything. 'It's the wrong attitude to take it for granted that Lars has to pay. There has never been any discussion about 'why should he pay?'"

"It is a pity that no one has taken steps when the sport offers such great opportunities for sponsors and the Tour de France in Copenhagen is just around the corner."

Riis said that his desire to build a top-level Danish-registered team has not diminished, but he seemed resigned to the prospect of his current team going under at the end of the year.

"I'm glad that a lot of people want me to lead a team and I'm very keen to have a Danish team on the World Tour. Maybe in the future that will happen."

"It is a pity that we could not do a good and proper project, because that was what Lars and I wanted. We wanted to build a good team and build something great around it. That was the plan from the beginning, but it didn't work out that way. At least not now."

Eight riders, including hour record holder Victor Campenaerts, are under contract with the team through 2021, but the entire roster and staff are encouraged to look for other jobs starting next year.