Basketball, 'end of games' for Trapani excluded from Serie A

The Federbasket's National Sports Judge has ruled the exclusion of the Trapani Shark from participation in the Serie A Championship for the 2025-2026 sporting season, while retaining the right to register for the senior free agent championships. The decision was made after a meeting between Fip and Lega Basket Serie A. All games played so far by Trapani Shark are cancelled as provided for in Article 17, paragraph 3, of the Executive Rules for Competitions. It was also applied the penalty of a fine of 600 thousand euros, equal to twelve times that provided for the first waiver of the Official Notice Contributions as provided by Article 56, paragraph 2, of the Rules of Justice. The president, Valerio Antonini, was further inhibited for three months pursuant to Article 44 of the Justice Regulations. Finally, the transmission of the acts to the Tesseramento Office for the release of Senior athletes and to the National Coaches' Committee for the cancellation of CNA memberships was ordered, pursuant to articles 18 and 19 of the Tesseramento Executive Regulation and article 56, paragraph 3, of the Justice Regulations.

The decision comes after the last championship game, played by Trapani with only seven players on the scoreboard and ended at 5'49" of the first quarter, only one player of the Granata team remaining on the court. According to the judge, there was 'a blatant alteration of the competitive equality of the teams on the court, resulting from the deployment by Trapani Shark of a line-up evidently unable to compete with the opponent, in order to formally play the match in question and not incur in a second waiver that would result in the definitive withdrawal from this Championship'. It was therefore 'considered correct and fair for the case in question,' continued the press release, 'to assimilate the playing of the match with a formation evidently not able to compete with the opponent to an actual waiver of the same.

The exclusion of the Sicilian club starts from administrative irregularities already detected by the Com.Te.C, the control body on the accounts of professional basketball teams, last May. Trapani basketball was thus sanctioned with 4 penalty points to be served in the 2025/26 season, 'for administrative irregularities relating to the correct fulfilment of IRPEF and INPS payments on the basis of findings made by the Agenzia delle Entrate'. The reason was related to the famous story of credits - later non-existent - that Trapani Shark had bought from the Alfieri Group as tax credits to meet federal deadlines. On 24 November, Trapani received another penalty point because 'it was found that it had failed to make the payment of the IV instalment due by the month of August 2025 relating to the contradictory minutes stipulated with the Agenzia delle Entrate on 29 May 2025 for a total amount of about Euro 120,969.37'.

Due to this situation, the team gradually found itself with personnel problems. Both coach Jasmin Repesa, who resigned, and captain Amar Alibegovic left the group. With the sale of Timmy Allen, at the player's request, the club was left with only 11 members. Hence the 50,000 euro fine that came after the game against Udine.

This was followed by increasingly heated skirmishes with the sporting institutions, missed away matches, 'farce' matches lasting only a few minutes with a minimum number of players to avoid disqualification, until the exclusion decreed on 12 January.