on 30 june 2006, the management of the tour de france announced at a press conference that a number of riders, including ivan basso, would not be riding in the 2006 tour de france due to rumours of blood doping stemming from the operación puerto investigation in spain. according to the investigation, basso was allegedly given blood doping by the dr. fuentes in a spanish clinic. no formal charges had been raised, but following an agreement between the managers of all the protour teams, any rider under suspicion of doping would not be allowed to start in protour races. this forced csc to remove basso from their squad for the 2006 tour.