Madrid- Tour de France chief Patrice Clerc, the president of the company which owns the world's biggest bike race, said he is alarmed by the current state of cycling only a day before the sport elects a new president.

On Friday, International Cycling Union (UCI) president Hein Verbruggen is likely to be replaced by his handpicked successor, Irishman Pat McQuaid. The election is being held, however, under a cloud following suggestions from several UCI members that the UCI has not been transparent and, some have claimed, corrupt - charges that have been vehemently denied by the UCI.

Clerc himself has been at loggerheads with Verbruggen over the Tour's role in the UCI ProTour series, which has not yet been resolved.

"Today, it seems to me there is huge danger in the sport, all the warning lights are starting to flash," said Clerc, the president of ASO (Amaury Sports Organisation).

"The main danger is the lack of image, and it's a problem which is starting to be amplified in several areas (of the sport)."

Verbruggen, in charge of the UCI for 14 years and an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, introduced big reforms in the sport last year.

However the 64-year-old Dutchman's vision, which includes the ProTour series introduced this year, is not to everyone's liking, including the organizers of the three big tours of Italy, France and Spain. “What was supposed to be the reform of professional cycling has not won a lot of admirers, that's the least we can say,” Clerc said. "All the structures in cycling are at loggerheads with each other. If we don't take control of the situation in a consensual manner, I believe the sport is in danger."

"For the past year the image of cycling has been one of division,” he noted. “It's messy. The UCI has to rediscover as an arbitrator. As regards the ProTour problem, the UCI has stepped way outside its role."

Clerc said the issues at stake are more than just a simple clash of personalities.

"I'm the chairman of a company, I'm not a rival to Verbruggen."

Despite the apparent crises Friday's election will likely leave McQuaid, a UCI administrator since 1997, in the UCI hot seat.

It remains to be seen if the Irishman, considered less volatile than Verbruggen, can resolve the clash with the Tour de France - a race which Verbruggen threatened to throw out of the ProTour series if it does not bend to his wishes.

Clerc said he agrees with Verbruggen's vision and principle of "the best teams in the best races," but warned that races such as the Tour, which has survived many crises including perhaps the biggest drugs scandal in sport, in 1998, would emerge victorious.

"The big races are more important than any individual, it's an undeniable law in sport,” Clerc said. "This rash of a crisis called the ProTour is at most a chapter, at the least a page, in the history of the Tour de France."