Bradley Wiggins' former team bowed to the Briton's wish to join Team Sky to avoid a "destructive" courtroom battle.

The 29-year-old has long been linked with a move from Team Garmin-Transitions to Team Sky, the road team led by British Cycling performance director Dave Brailsford, and Thursday agreed a four-year deal after negotiating the release from his contract with the American team.

It was with reluctance that Jonathan Vaughters, the Garmin manager, allowed Wiggins to renege on the final year of his two-year contract.

"In effect, he let it be known to me that he wanted to go to Team Sky," Vaughters told Press Association Sport.

"It's a settlement. At the end of the day you have a choice between a drawn-out battle in court that would be destructive to cycling and my team and our efforts and Brad and his efforts.

"You simply just have to make the choice to respect his athletic ability and talent."

Wiggins has long been the subject of conjecture over a move to the BSkyB-backed team, which will launch at January's Tour Down Under in Adelaide and South Australia - talk which escalated following his fourth-placed finish in July's Tour de France.

In the aftermath of the Tour, Vaughters and Wiggins both spoke about the prospect of the rider extending his deal with Garmin.

Vaughters was unaware why Wiggins changed his mind, but did not believe a move to Team Sky was inevitable.

He added: "I don't know. You'll have to ask Brad.

"I wanted Brad to stay and I did everything I could to convince him of that."

Wiggins has performed for six road teams since he turned professional with the Linda McCartney team in 2001.

He moved to Francaise des Jeux in 2002, Credit Agricole in 2004, Cofidis in 2006 - where he came fourth in the London prologue of the Tour de France - Team High Road in 2008 and in 2009, Garmin-Slipstream, who recently became Team Garmin-Transitions.

Wiggins was a world-renowned track racer - having won three Olympic titles in the velodrome - and Vaughters was convinced of his ability on the road.

"Fourteen months ago, there was only one team knocking on Brad's door and that was me," said Vaughters.

"The reason I was doing that is because I like Brad and I liked his talent and it was something I recognised a long time ago when everyone else was thinking of him as a track rider.

"Of course I would like to have had him continue with us, but that's just not going to be possible."

Garmin's Christian Vande Velde finished fourth in the 2008 Tour before Wiggins equalled Britain's best finish in the 2009 edition of cycling's most prestigious race.

Vande Velde finished eighth last July despite carrying seven broken bones throughout the race following a crash earlier in the year.

But Vaughters insisted Wiggins had Garmin's full support, whether in the mountains or in the velodrome.

Vaughters added: "In a lot of ways it simplifies our goals a little bit for the Tour de France.

"It simplifies the math for me now - we're an American team with an American leader (Vande Velde)."

Earlier this week, Brailsford was forced to defend Team Sky's recruitment policy after Ben Swift was named in the squad for their debut race - before even signing for the British team.

Vaughters refused to weigh into a war of words over Team Sky's pursuit of riders.

"I don't really know what they've been doing first hand outside of Brad," he said.

"They put a lot of effort into Brad as he's Britain's best rider.

"Their recruitment methods are their business."