Putting budget caps on the WorldTour teams would be a bad idea, says Deceuninck-Quick Step boss Patrick Lefevere.

Some say cycling's governing body is ready to limit team budgets to a certain amount to make the sport more exciting and limit some teams' domination.

Lefevere runs his team on around €20 million ($22 million) a year, compared to top team Ineos with around $52 million in its pockets.

"I'm quite proud of this," Lefevere said about his team leading the win rankings year after year despite not having the biggest budget.

"Of course, the others are fighting also to win and if you have to leave riders [out of the team] because you cannot afford anymore to pay them... It's hurts. But it's life."

The Belgian team boss spoke with FloBikes at a Team Deceuninck-Quick Step camp in Calpe, Spain. Their his star riders Sam Bennett, Remco Evenepoel, and Julian Alaphilippe prepared for the 2020 season.

In 2019, his team won 68 times, putting it at the top of the rankings ahead of Jumbo-Visma with 51. However, as his riders win, they are more in demand and sometimes too much for him to keep at the end of the season. Such was the situation with Niki Terpstra, Mark Cavendish, Philippe Gilbert, Daniel Martin, and others in the past.

"It's all about money," added Lefevere.

Budget caps could help even the playing field and produce more excitement, but others like Lefevere have spoken out against them.

"If you take [bigger budgets and sponsors] away, what do teams have to strive for?" Chris Froome (Ineos) said in 2017. "Why are you working harder? To win more races? To take that away, it's almost as if we are becoming communists."

"I'm too old to change the sport, but I don't believe in caps," said Lefevere. "We live in a democracy, I think. So everybody's free to pay what he wants to somebody, it's the market who decides what you're worth."