MXGP Rumours/Silly season

Maybe F&H could represent the brand in MX2 category in 2026...

You mean 2026? 🤔

Yes correct, it’s not 2025 yet 😀

FH will take the MX2 indeed 

So the following teams we will not see back next season:
Standing Construct
F&H 
SM Action 

not confirmed / rumours of teams calling it quits:
De Baets Racing Team
Vrignon Racing Team
Beddini Racing Team

Doesn’t look too great..

DeBaets and Beddini : confirmed.

VRT, it would be a surprise to me. Where does this rumour come from?

It isn’t looking that bad..

FH will return (2026)

Ven venrooy is coming back 

Ducati will join in 2025, probably later on with a 250 squad as well. 


De Baets was last year already a almost done, but kemea (hans) was their to give some extra budget.

VRT and Yamaha will probably split ways as they are both unhappy with each other, but Yamaha will find a new home for their emx squad. 
 

The only thing i heard was a small mention (1 sentence) by lewis in their podcast this week. He mentioned VRT and Hutten.

Such teams going or staying is the difference between a decent gate or a very strong gate. Just imagine the 2024 mxgp gate plus teams like van venrooy, hsf, diga etc still involved. 

What's the deal with Hutten ? 

🤔

And Riley is coming back with 2 riders, so not much will change at the end. 

It’s still about the Jumbo stuff behind the scenes. 

Fingers crossed Hutten Metaal team will not be too impacted by these problems...

Farres to MX2 Triumph official now.
Great hire for them. Honestly, if he gels with the bike he can be a title threat. Unless KDW stays in the class. People forget how good he has been in the US in the few races he did between injuries

99% sure that KdW is staying MX2.

The team owner is a suspect in a large criminal investigation. Actually he already was when he got the MX2 effort so I guess Japan wasn’t aware at the time.

Correct, if Lucas want to stay in the MX2 then he was moving up. But Lucas moved into MXGP, so he will defend his title. 

Also correct, the Hutten owner didn’t tell all the stories and now everything is coming on the table with the investigation. 

2025 MX2 World Championship would be a lot more interesting for the fans without De Wolf...

But for the KTM group, it's not the same logic.

😏

S&D (Fanatic mx2) is also under investigation. That has probably also something to do with their quitting.

Investigation for what/by whom? Nothing to do with Jumbo?

You can find the article here but it’s in Dutch:
https://archive.is/eYyq3

Frits van Eerd is in the interrogation room of the police station in Assen. It is Thursday, September 15, 2022, almost five o'clock, and he has been interrogated since 09.30 this morning. Emotions sometimes go up high. The day before yesterday, the Jumbo CEO in Brabant was lifted from his bed early in the morning, and since then he has had no contact with the home front. He misses his wife and children, and wants to go home.

Opposite him are two detectives from the Northern Netherlands police. All day they saw him through about his connection with Theo E., the Drenthe car dealer who, like Van Eerd, was put in jail two days earlier. Justice suspects that the duo was guilty of money laundering and forgery.

Agent: ,,lk ask you again: have you been pressured, blackmailed by E. or is there something else why you are doing this?”

Van Eerd: "I think it's best that I don't answer it for a while."

Agent: ,,What's going on with you now?”

Van Eerd: "How could it get that far, that's going through me now."

Officer: ,,You nod, what are you thinking about?”

Van Eerd: ,, I think about so much at once, but also about how to proceed.”

The dismay at Van Eerd is easy to understand. His reputation is immaculate until the day of his arrest. But what the outside world doesn't know is that he has been trapped in a web of criminals in recent years. Justice has a strong suspicion that money that customers paid at the Jumbo cash register was channelled to people with a very questionable reputation.

What the outside world also doesn't know is that it's not the first time Van Eerd has seen an interrogation room inside. In 2014, eight years earlier, he got into big trouble thanks to this same Theo E. In the Arville criminal case, it was determined that with many hundreds of thousands of euros of sponsorship money, from the Jumbo, crime profits were laundered.

An example of a possible money laundering construction through sports sponsorship

Page 1 of 1, Flow

Like E., Van Eerd was then classified as a suspect: he would be involved in forgery, money laundering and participation in a criminal organisation. Jumbo, who was busy with spectacular acquisitions at the time, crawled through the eye of the needle, because it did not leak that her jovial CEO was a suspect in a major criminal case.

Van Eerd was ultimately not prosecuted by justice, Theo E. was. Jumbo filed a complaint against him, and made Van Eerd promise to break his contacts with Theo.

And at first glance, that's what happens. Van Eerd and the rest of the family are doing more than well after 2014. Frits van Eerd grows into one of the best-known entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. Under his leadership, Jumbo grows into a challenger of Albert Heijn. Van Eerd has an asset of many hundreds of millions of euros, the largest collection of Formula 1 cars in the world and leads a life that others only dare to dream of.

Compelling

But what turns out? He leads yet another life, in which he still maintains intimate contact with Theo E., the man who got him into big trouble in 2014. This is evident from eavesdropped conversations, but also from the dozens of apps the police have read along. Sometimes E. is downright compelling to the supermarket boss, as it turns out:

On May 9, 2018, for example, if Jumbo has to pay a sponsor invoice:

Instead of blocking E.'s phone number, or seeking help from Jumbo, Van Eerd admits to the pressure of the Drent.

What's behind this? Why does Van Eerd get involved with a convicted criminal like Theo E., who in the past played a role in the liquidation processes surrounding Willem Holleeder and is linked to cocaine trafficking?

In recent months, this site has conducted extensive research into the way in which Frits van Eerd has operated since 2014, often in the utmost secrecy and without the knowledge of his family and the top of Jumbo. The investigation shows that Frits van Eerd and Theo E. have never let each other go. In this way, Van Eerd also opened the door to other dubious figures, who wanted to snack from the jar of Jumbo money. At himself and at Jumbo's headquarters, criminals came across the floor several times. Van Eerd hid many hundreds of thousands of euros in his bedroom, in envelopes, in bookcases and even in a Jumbo bag in a refrigerator.

Justice is now investigating at least five cases in which Jumbo's money has fallen into the wrong hands. Together, this involves several million sponsorship money per year. Van Eerd would have received items and large sums of cash in exchange for the sponsorship money, it is suspected. We are set up the matter in five chapters.

1. Theo gets half

April 19, 2018. Wim H.'s motocross team sends a press release into the world: 'H. Metaal Yamaha Racing and Jumbo Supermarkets join forces' and 'This week team owner Wim H. has entered into an agreement with Frits van Eerd ' (...) 'Jumbo Supermarkets has a warm heart for motorsport and is therefore excited to help the youth to the top.'

H.'s motocross team is known as extremely professional and moves in luxury buses with beautiful dark blue Yamaha logos. The team scout talents, who like to come and ride at the formation, because of the good facilities. ,,H. is looking for boys all over Europe”, says Frits van Eerd when the police ask him to do so. ,,He also has a junior program, which is also the reason why I started investing heavily in the team as well.”

Wim H. © Own image

It seems like an agreement between two entrepreneurs with a great love for motocross. On the one hand there is Frits van Eerd, the racing director of Jumbo, the first serious sponsor of Max Verstappen, and a great fan of the sport. And on the other hand, team boss Wim H. from Beerzerveld, owner of a large steel company and former motocrosser.

But who was at the base of this sponsorship? None other than Theo E. He realises all too well that Jumbo no longer transfers money directly to him after the events of 2014. In an interrogation with the police, de Drent says that he became a persona non grata for Eerd's family after 2014.

E. therefore looks for detours. The sponsorship money from the supermarket has to go to intermediaries. Theo E. then agrees with them that they will transfer half of the amount to him. That's exactly what happens with H., the team boss from Overijssel. In Theo's administration, justice comes across an agreement with Wim H.

A number of things have been agreed in it. First, as soon as Jumbo has transferred the first money, H. must pay 215,000 euros to E.'s company. After that, according to the contract, the Drent is entitled to half of all sponsorship contributions that Wim H. receives from Jumbo.

Van Eerd also denies knowing anything about a deal along these terms in the police's interrogation room. ,, I didn't talk about that with E. at all and not with Wim either. Wim just asked if we wanted to sponsor and I just did.”

The cash flow towards Wim H., and therefore also to Theo E., soon gets off to a good start. Between 2018 and 2021, Jumbo will deposit a total of almost 2.3 million euros into Wim H.'s account. During the same period, it will transfer more than one million euros to E.

What do you want to hear from me? I've never seen this relationship like this

-Van Eerd in the interrogation room

Yellow truck

Van Eerd also benefits from this, is the theory of the Public Prosecution Service. Justice suspects that Van Eerd will receive cash and beautiful things, in exchange for the sponsorship. For example, he would have received a jet ski from Wim H. Wim H. and Theo E. talk about it, and the police are listening: ,,I'm now on my way to that man in uh..with that yellow truck.'' [According to justice, he is referring to Jumbo CEO Van Eerd, ed.]

In the interrogation room, officers say Van Eerd that more than a million have been passed on to Theo E. via Wim H. ,,I think that's very strange. I can't place it'', says Van Eerd, who desperately wonders whether E. is using him as a 'cash cow'.

It makes him emotional, it turns out during his first interrogation: ,,I was arrested this morning at 7 o'clock, which I think is the biggest scare of every entrepreneur. I'm really looking for: what am I doing here. What do you want to hear from me? I've never seen this relationship like this. I'm not part of this. I have nothing to do with this!''

2. An apartment in Spain

A few years after Arville's 2014 money laundering business, Van Eerd comes into contact with former motocrosser Bas V after a tip from Theo. He has set up his own team and Jumbo will soon sponsor the team. Starting in 2018, the supermarket will transfer 484,000 euros annually to the team, which is called No Fear. The fact that V. was arrested by the police on suspicion of money laundering in 2015 is no obstacle for Jumbo and Van Eerd.

Motorcyclists from the team No Fear. ©Huub Munsters

Even a new police raid, in 2019, does not change the sponsor relationship. This time V., with three others, is arrested during a major action by the Brabant police. When he raids Son en Breugel, Best and Liempde, he seizes a large amount of cash, administration, mobile phones, cars, jewellery and clothing, and a riding school and a house. At V.'s father, officers find a firearm.

Jumbo continues to just pour money into the team. But in February 2020 something strange will happen, the detectives see. On February 12, the supermarket will deposit 242,000 euros into the account of V.'s team, half of the annual sponsor amount. Two days later, the team boss transferred more than two tons of it to his personal holding company. Another day later, he dumps it under the heading 'purchase apartment' into his private account. And on February 17, less than a week after receiving the sponsorship money, he owns a pull-in in Finestrat, a village on the Spanish south coast.

Benidorm © Getty Images/iStockphoto

As Van Eerd in the interrogation room…

E = Theo Eggens

Bas V = Bas Verhoeven

H = Wim Hutten 

All those names where/are team owners as well BT Racing/Hutten Metaal/Eggens Racing, all sponsored by Jumbo, only one who’s missing is the owner of the Riley Racing Team in this story. His team got down as well with the Jumbo investigation. But seems like Kawasak will invest some money for 2025. Which is good for the MX scene, hopefully the Jumbo stuff won’t effect the effort from Kawasaki. 

Investigation about what? 🤔

This web is big, Riley racing support is coming directly from JJL, Riley have money, (has Riley paid him to makeIt look like There operation continued without jumbo support as a defence tactic) Look just absorb the facts, why was f&h all black this year, a team who has marcy Marc on board who has always been in bed with eggens, and why are they going away now, there are a lot people using shredding machines right now, 

But at the end of the day fuck it, someone took government money and put it into motocross, they need a medal 

Who’s JJL? It’s strange to say, but all that illegal money has brought the MX to a good point in the scene. If they didn’t do that, there where quite some teams not operating for a few years.

Jean-Jacques Luisetti, CLS, the guy who brought pourcel back