Former UCI president Pat McQuaid has called Chris Froome's adverse drugs test "a disaster" for cycling.
Four-time Tour de France winner Froome had double the permitted level of the asthma drug salbutamol in a urine test taken during his victory in La Vuelta in September.
The result is not automatically classified as a positive test and the 32-year-old has not been suspended, but he must provide a satisfactory explanation for the adverse findings or he faces a ban and the loss of his Vuelta title.
Froome has denied any wrongdoing and said he is providing all the necessary information to the UCI, but Irishman McQuaid, who was president of the world governing body from 2005 to 2013, told BBC Sport Froome would find it "very hard to avoid a ban".
"I don't see how Chris Froome can turn around like he did and say 'I played by the rules, I broke no rules'," McQuaid said.
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"The fact is, he has broken a rule. The fact is his urine sample was twice the permitted limit. It's up to him to go and prove that he could have done otherwise.
"We're now three months down the road, and they haven't found a solution or a resolution to it yet."
