Following a dispute and power struggle between the UCI and the organisers of the Grand Tours, ASO, RCS and Unipublic, a number of events were run as ProTour events, although without ProTour licences.

After numerous doping scandals in previous years, culminating with Floyd Landis' doping scandal in the 2006 Tour de France, the Phonak team was disbanded when the new title sponsor, iShares, decided to cease sponsoring and pull out of cycling.

The links between the ProTour and the organisers of the three Grand Tours (ASO, RCS MediaGroup and Unipublic) remain strained.

ASO have requested that the 2007 edition be downgraded from ProTour status to NE (national calendar status), therefore lacking UCI world-ranking points and threatening the participation of the ProTeams.

[1] This was resolved to an extent though and Paris–Nice took place as the first ProTour race of the season, although without Unibet.com.