Recently-crowned Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will leave current team Astana at the end of the season.
The 27-year-old Spaniard won the Tour for the third time on Sunday but has rejected a contract offer from the Kazakhstan-backed team.
"The position of both parties was not so far from each other, but the team wanted to know," said a spokesperson for Contador. "Alberto Contador has rejected the ultimatum of Astana."
Contador won two of his three Tour de France titles plus the Giro d'Italia and Spanish Vuelta during his three seasons with Astana.
He joined the team in 2007 after the Discovery Channel set-up, which also contained seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, was disbanded.
Armstrong came out of retirement in 2009 and endured an uneasy relationship with Contador at Astana during that year's Tour, before he and long-time directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel moved on to form a new Radioshack team for this season.