![\"\"](\"https:\/\/valloni.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/BAT-VALLONI-2026-1024x683.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When a club in financial difficulty stops paying, the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT) is often the first and fastest forum available to a player, coach or agent.<\/p>\n
The recent collapse of Trapani Shark, an Italian Serie A club, that was also competing in the Basketball Champions League, shows both the strengths of the BAT system and its limits.<\/p>\n
In the weeks around Christmas 2025 the club\u2019s season unravelled; in early January 2026, it forfeited a Champions League play-in match on court; and on 13 January 2026, the National Sports Judge of the Italian Basketball Federation (FIP) excluded it from the 2025-26 Serie A championship.<\/p>\n
As publicly reported, all matches already played were cancelled, the club was fined \u20ac600,000 (around Sw. Frs. 555,000) and its players were released.<\/p>\n
The exclusion followed points deductions for unpaid tax and social security contributions.<\/p>\n
On 16 July 2026, the FIP Federal Council revoked the club\u2019s affiliation.<\/p>\n
The club is challenging these decisions before the administrative courts, with a hearing on the merits reportedly set for January 2027.<\/p>\n
A BAT clause in the contract gives a creditor a fast, low-cost route to an enforceable title. The seat is Geneva; a single arbitrator decides, as a rule, on one written submission per party; and the arbitrator endeavours to issue the award within six weeks of the close of the proceedings.<\/p>\n
Where the sum in dispute does not exceed \u20ac50,000 (around Sw. Frs. 46,000), or the claim is not disputed, the award is issued without reasons, which further reduces time and cost.<\/p>\n
Where the parties have agreed to it, the Payment Order Procedure (POP) allows a creditor with a monetary claim of up to \u20ac25,000 (around Sw. Frs. 23,000) to obtain a Final Payment Order, with the effects of a final and binding award, if the respondent does not object within 14 days of the Provisional Payment Order.<\/p>\n
With a club in crisis, the difficulty is not winning but collecting. A BAT award is a Swiss-seated award and can, in principle, be recognised and enforced in Italy under the 1958 New York Convention, through the competent Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
It is final and binding once communicated and can be challenged only before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on the limited grounds set out in Article 190(2) of the Swiss Private International Law Act of 18 December 1987.<\/p>\n
As at the end of 2023, only eight requests for annulment were known and none had succeeded.<\/p>\n
But exclusion from a championship, or even the loss of federation affiliation, does not extinguish the club\u2019s debts: the legal entity remains the debtor unless it is wound up. What disappears is leverage, because federation-level consequences for non-payment lose much of their force once the club has left the system. If insolvency proceedings are opened, claims must be filed within them on time.<\/p>\n
There is also a structural point. By submitting to the BAT Rules, the parties waive any right to request provisional or conservatory measures from the state courts (Article 10.4), although the arbitrator may order such measures, including ex parte<\/em> in cases of extreme urgency. Security for payment, therefore, needs to be built into the contract itself.<\/p>\n In BAT 2390\/25, which was decided on 1 April 2026, three months after the club\u2019s exclusion, the author of this NEWS item, acting for the player Akwasi Abeyie Yeboah and his agency, obtained an award against Trapani Shark S.r.l. for unpaid salary and agency fees, with interest at 5% per annum. The club was ordered to bear 80% of the arbitration costs and to contribute to the claimants\u2019 legal fees. Issued without reasons, because the sum in dispute was below \u20ac50,000 (around Sw. Frs. 46,000), the award shows that the BAT can deliver an enforceable title even when the debtor is no longer competing.<\/p>\nPractical lessons for players, agents and coaches<\/h2>\n
\n