The Roca Team will learn its fate on Tuesday, October 6, after Monaco’s commercial court heard the club’s insolvency case on Friday, October 2, in a hearing that gave little cause for optimism.
France’s reigning champions have played no competitive basketball since being denied entry into Betclic Élite by the LNB on financial grounds, then rejected again by the French Basketball Federation. A separate plan to join an Adriatic league also fell apart after the Monegasque government declined to back it, leaving the club without a team, a competition, or any real path forward beyond a slim hope resting on an urgent appeal before Paris’s administrative court.
That appeal formed the basis of the club’s defence on Friday, with its lawyers asking the Monaco court to postpone its decision. Should the Paris court rule in the Roca Team’s favour and reinstate the club in Nationale 1, the club’s €21.7 million debt to the Soutien National Financier, a Monegasque public financing body, could potentially be written off, reopening the door for private investor Swiss Montana to return with €10 million in annual backing.
Prosecutor Fanny Philibert firmly rejected the request for a delay. “I am firmly opposed to this request for a postponement,” she told the hearing. “We are already at the sixth postponement. The club has no activity left and has been rejected by every relevant body. September salaries have not been paid, the financial situation is catastrophic and debts keep accumulating. The club’s insolvency is established, it should have already been declared well before now.”
The condition for Monaco avoiding repayment of the €21.7 million SNF loan was admission into Nationale 1. With the Federation having closed that door, the club’s main debt was triggered in full, and new shareholder Swiss Montana A.G. withdrew from the project.
Court President Alexia Brianti said the club’s total liabilities now stand at €27.8 million. She noted the club remains up to date with tax authorities, but owes €5,000 to social security funds, with a request for leniency on that specific debt, which relates to a late-payment penalty.
Asked how many people the club employs, executive director Oleksiy Yefimov, standing upright at the bar in a light blue suit, answered 21. He told the court the Paris administrative court’s ruling is expected sometime during October.
After deliberating, the Monaco court confirmed it will deliver its ruling on October 6. Barring a significant surprise, such as a favourable ruling from Paris, an insolvency declaration appears the most likely outcome, a decision that could ultimately lead to the professional club’s liquidation.
For now, only the Roca Team’s Nationale 3 men’s team, which operates under the club’s amateur association rather than its professional structure, continues to represent the club’s colours in national competition.
In an ironic twist, the case heard immediately before the Roca Team’s on Friday concerned a debt owed by FedCom Média to ASVEL Basket’s men’s and women’s teams. That case was postponed, with the court noting that part of the debt had begun to be repaid and that an agreement between the parties still appeared possible. FedCom Média belongs to Alexei Fedorischev, the club’s former benefactor and president, whose financial collapse originally triggered the Roca Team’s crisis.