AS Monaco Basket, the reigning champions of French basketball’s domestic top-flight LNB Elite, have been expelled from the competition for the 2026-27 season and will have to play in the third tier.
One of the most prominent European basketball sides over the last five years, AS Monaco Basket will now compete in the third-tier Nationale Masculine 1 (NM1) division after being administratively relegated due to the club’s ongoing financial difficulties and inability to meet registration requirements.
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The club has also been expelled from the EuroCup international club competition and will be replaced by Bosnian side KK BOSNA BH Telecom Sarajevo, who have secured a one-season participation slot at Monaco’s expense.
Other key beneficiaries include Saint-Quentin Basket-Ball, which finished second-to-last in the LNB Elite in 2025-26, but has had its relegation to the second tier halted due to Monaco’s administrative relegation.
Similarly, Lyon side ASVEL, which finished fourth in the LNB Elite 2025-26 regular season but were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, will take Monaco’s place in the season-opening Super Cup mini-tournament.
AS Monaco had appealed its relegation and had begun the process of searching for new investment. Indeed, as recently as July 31, it seemed that new owners would come in time for the club to avoid relegation. Ultimately, multiple appeals ended unsuccessfully, and new ownership groups failed to show up in time.
The club has since confirmed a new majority shareholder who has committed to investing €10 million into the team, although their identity has not yet been revealed.
Additionally, the club has also claimed it has taken the “necessary steps” to settle outstanding debts to both suppliers and third parties.
However, it seems all that came too little, too late, with the Federal Bureau of the French Basketball Federation refusing to reopen the case.
In a statement posted on their website, AS Monaco Basket said: “With the strong support of its new majority shareholder, the authorities of the Principality, its loyal fans, and its committed partners, AS Monaco Basket is resolutely looking to the future and embarking on the rebuilding of its sporting, economic, and social project on solid and sustainable foundations.
“Starting this week, the club will submit its application for a place in the French National Men's 1 league. The objective is clear: to return.”
A number of the championship-winning team from 2025-26 had already left when the initial decision was made back in July, making for a mass departure that would have threatened the club’s ability to compete at the top level, regardless of whether they were allowed to do so.
The team’s top-paid player, Mike James, who went on strike for several months over unpaid wages, led an exodus that also included championship-winning players Alpha Diallo, Matthew Strazel, Elie Okobo, and Nikola Mirotic, who have all departed for new clubs.
In 2025-26, Monaco won every domestic trophy on offer, including a triumph over Paris Basket in the LNB Elite finals to win their third title in the past four years, while internationally, the team also reached the playoffs of the continental EuroLeague, falling to eventual champions Olympiacos in the quarter-finals.
Despite this, the season was far from a settled one for the principality side, which endured numerous staff and player protests for unpaid wages, as well as rumors that it may have been excluded from the LNB playoffs, and a court case regarding the financial viability of the club’s owner, Russian-born Hungarian-Monegasque businessman Alexey Fedorychev.
Fedorychev acquired AS Monaco Basket in early 2022, immediately backing the team to two consecutive LNB Elite championships in 2022-23 and 2023-24, as well as a run to the EuroLeague final in 2024-25, where the team finished runners-up, having also finished third in 2022-23.
The club have been among the most competitive in the EuroLeague since Fedorychev acquired the team, but his Fedcom Group business, a chemicals manufacturer that operates in Ukraine, has been heavily impacted by the country's ongoing war with Russia, hampering the club’s ability to fulfill its contracts, some of which are among the most lucrative in all of European basketball.
The club was only able to skirt around bankruptcy proceedings after the Monegasque state funneled €2.5 million in credit in order to cover overdue salaries and the most urgent debts.
The financial burdens of the war in Ukraine on Fedorychev have also had extant effects on French basketball at large, as the Fedcom media arm of his company (and its streaming service Skweek) lost its top basketball contracts.
Much like AS Monaco Basket, Skweek has been dogged by financial issues, which in late January led to Skweek staff launching strike action over unpaid wages, resulting in the service failing to air a round of EuroLeague fixtures, and then airing the following round without commentary.
This led to the EuroLeague cancelling its contract with the broadcaster, which, in 2024, also lost the rights to the LNB Elite competition after rights payment issues, marking another substantial blow for Fedcom’s attempts to dominate the French basketball market both on the court and off it.
