He can’t refuse to race and get paid. I can’t see any way that wouldn’t be breach of contract on his end. He can refuse to race for Astana, not get paid by Astana, and Astana can at least try to deny anyone else the right to let him race for them for pay. The 100 million dollar question (ok not that much but several million probably) is whether Bert’s got a legal argument that gets him out of the contract, so he can ride for someone else and get paid. If not, his options are ‘ride for Astana and get paid’ or ’don’t ride and don’t get paid.’

The latter, by the way, should also have the effect of making any other team on the planet that’s sane think three or four or six times before signing him to any contract at all. People who just break contracts because they’re annoyed at team management are um, not typically people you want to sign contracts with.

In a lot of respects, this is why it’s fairly important for this to end with either a) Astana voluntarily letting him go / allowing someone to buy out his contract or b) Bert actually winning a lawsuit against them to the effect that they’ve so materially changed the terms of his employment as to make the original contract invalid. Even then, I’d say b is a much less preferable option because it still tends to set a precedent that, as a team manager, I’d be very uncomfortable with.

Your cynicism is showing ;)