The ProTour-level Quick Step-Innergetic squad is battling to defend its reputation after a Belgian newspaper alleged that the team structured an elaborate internal doping system, which is being protected by an informant at the sport's world ruling body.

The damaging claims have been made in Belgian paper Het Latste Nieuws, which this week launched a salvo at the team, its former star rider Johan Museeuw and the current team manager Patrick Lefévère.

Museeuw, the former world champion — known as the 'Lion of Flanders' — surprised many observers on Tuesday by confessing to having doped in the twilight of his career. Further, and more serious allegations have thrown the spotlight on the team which employs 2005 world champion and one-day specialist Tom Boonen, as well as Olympic and reigning world champion Paolo Bettini of Italy.

On Tuesday Lefévère, the team's emblematic manager, was forced on the defensive after Museeuw, who had been the team's public relations manager, admitted to doping in the final year of his otherwise sterling career.

"I wanted to finish my career in style, which pushed me to not play the game honestly," said Museeuw. Lefévère, too, has also been targeted in the paper’s reports.

An anonymous team rider reportedly told the newspaper of organized doping and recreational drug use, which he said is able to flourish because the team is helped by informant at the UCI who allegedly warned of impending drug tests.

"The riders don't just take doping products (EPO, Insulin Growth Factor, growth hormones and steroids), but also drugs like ecstasy, cocaine and speed," the anonymous rider alleged.

The same rider affirmed that Lefévère, who has been among the most vocal advocates of new anti-doping measures in the troubled sport, "financially profits from a system which he knows plenty about."

Lefévère has formally denied the allegations, and has been taking legal advice about a possible suit for defamation.

"Let them say what they want about me. Someone who has done nothing wrong has nothing to fear," said Lefévère.

Boonen meanwhile left for the Tour of Qatar, which begins on Sunday, in disbelief.

"It's impossible. I don't believe for one second that a rider from the team has come out and said this," he said. "What he supposedly said just has too many holes in it. I have every confidence in Patrick. He's my manager, but he's more than just that. He is constantly reminding us that we have to stay clean and not resort to doping.

"They say there's no smoke without fire, but I have little confidence in smoke coming from anonymous sources. The fact that Museeuw has admitted doping at the end of his career doesn't mean there is organized doping in the team."

After last season's damaging, but unfounded doping allegations surrounding 58 riders implicated in a Spanish doping affair dubbed Operation Puerto, and the clamor surrounding Floyd Landis's positive test for testosterone at the Tour de France, another doping affair is the last thing the sport needs.

Boonen admitted he was missing motivation.

"I'm fed up trying to constantly justify myself,” he said. “I understand why people doubt our credibility - for months we've all been the targets of criticism."