On the surface, the Dutch court’s ruling that Rabobank owes 1 million U.S. smackers to Michael Rasmussen seems a bit odd, primarily just one day ago, the cycling federation of Monaco –where Chickenwings is licensed — suspended him for two years for the very thing for which Rabobank had fired him.

The suspension was for Rasmussen lying about his whereabouts in missing doping controls before the Tour de France last year, which pretty much is treated like a positive. And that Rabo gassed Rasmussen during the TdF for that very same reason.

When linked together, the two generate a humonguous “HUH?”

But Chickenwings had sued Rabo for wrongful dismissal and had asked for 5.5 million Euro, and he ended up with a little less than 12 percent of that –  665,000 Euro (or $1055288.50 in our devalued U.S. currency), so that’s a little victory for him and a bit of a victory for Rabobank.

The 665,000 Euro amounts to two months salary and includes the 400,000 Euro bonus Rasmussen would have received for winning the Tour de France, which he would have done if Rabo had not acted to yank him four days from wearing the LCL Banque yellow jersey into Paris.

According to Velonews.com, under Dutch law, Rabo would have needed “extreme and urgent circumstances” to immediately fire Rasmussen as it did, and apparently lying to miss doping controls and being about to win the Tour de France wasn’t an extreme and urgent circumstance, primarily because team officials may have known about Ras’s ruse and should have benched him before the TdF.

Financially, Rabobank might have been better off letting Rasmussen wear its logo and team colors for the rest of the Tour and letting him go ahead and win. In that scenario, the Dutch banque could have withheld the bonus pending a fraud investigation and then fired Rasmussen later after the investigation confirmed the circumstances that led to the Monaco cycling federation issuing the suspension. That would have gotten around the “extreme and urgent” circumstances of the immediate dismissal. 

But that scenario would have been awful for the Tour de France, which would have had to de-maillot its second successive winner (tho it did that anyway by banning Astana and Alberto Contador, who took over the yellow jersey after Rabo yanked Rasmussen.)

The Tour de France, which makes upwards of 30 million Euro per year for Amaury Sports Organization, owes a great debt to the executives at Rabobank for yanking Rasmussen, and ASO should find a way to refund the Dutch banque at least some of Rasmussen’s “bonus money,” give it some free signage, free lodging, gas money or something. 

 But then again, maybe granting Rabobank entry into this year’s tour is the ASO’s return payment. The embarrassing l’Affair Rasmussen was probably worse than former Astana leader Alexander Vinokourouv testing positive for a creepy blood transfusion, yet Rabo was invited back and Astana banned, despite cleaning house.

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