Football in Israel

The IFA regulates football nationally, including the professional men’s leagues and the Women’s Premier League. The men’s top division currently has 14 clubs and divides into upper and lower groups after its initial rounds. The modern system developed from pre-state associations and competitions involving Jewish, Arab, and British teams, while later commercialization, professionalization, and international affiliation reshaped both clubs and the national team.

Football in the region developed through Jewish, Arab, and British teams, institutions, and competitions before the State of Israel was established. The earliest documented Jewish matches remain uncertain: newspaper evidence appears from 1912, while personal accounts describe games as early as 1910. Many early matches were informal, played by temporary sides on whatever ground was available. An early Arab team was formed at Jerusalem’s St. George’s English School, probably in the first five years of the twentieth century; the sport’s early Arab following was led mainly by Christian members of the upper and middle classes.

The growth of organized sport brought lasting club identities. Maccabi Tel Aviv traces its beginnings to the Jaffa-based Rishon LeZion association, founded in 1906, and is identified as the country’s oldest team. The Maccabi organization developed as an umbrella for Jewish sports associations, while the Histadrut’s Hapoel sporting union produced its first football team in Jerusalem in the 1920s. Hapoel later spread to teams in numerous cities. Beitar, founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Riga in 1923, was associated with Revisionist Zionism; Hapoel was linked to the workers’ movement. The movements’ sporting legacies remained visible in Israeli football.

British rule after the First World War helped raise football’s profile and organize competitions. British army sides played Maccabi teams, and football supplanted gymnastics as the leading sport. The Organization of Jewish Soccer Clubs was founded in 1925. In the 1920s, teams multiplied—mostly Jewish, but also Arab and British military and police sides—and the authorities established the Palestine Cup. Local Jewish teams also played clubs from Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria from at least 1927, with such matches continuing into the early 1940s.

The Eretz Israel Football Association, also referred to in sources as the Palestine Football Association, was founded in 1928. One account says its establishment followed an Egyptian suggestion and that inclusion of all population groups was a condition for FIFA recognition; another says the association was the first national sports federation and the only institution in which the rival Maccabi and Hapoel movements cooperated until after Israel’s establishment. Sources give different dates for its foundation—one historical account specifies July 18, while another places it in August 1928. A 2015 World Jewish Congress account records Ronald Lauder’s statement that FIFA recognized the association in 1929.

Jewish and Arab teams sometimes cooperated, and players from different communities could be selected for combined sides that played abroad. A 1941 report on a match between Jaffa’s Muslim Club and Maccabi Rehovot described the Arab team as having been welcomed “with friendly enthusiasm” by local football fans. Cooperation helped make a shared association possible, but it existed alongside political conflict. Jewish and British club games were suspended after Yishuv protests over the 1930 Passfield White Paper. Arab teams left the association in 1934 and formed a short-lived parallel body; after a dispute over a 1942 cup match and its appeal, they renounced membership in 1943 and established the Arab Sports Association in May 1944. The decision to end Jewish-Arab matches toward the Mandate’s close was political.

Accounts differ over the timing and meaning of the first league. One National Library history describes an initial national league formed in 1928 among teams from the two rival Jewish associations, while another National Library account dates the first league to 1932 and says a British club won it. A separate account places the first competitive season in 1927–28 and says regular cup tournaments involving British, Jewish, and Arab teams had been played from 1921. More detailed reporting dates the first Palestine league season to November 1931: its nine teams comprised eight Hebrew clubs and a British police team, which won the championship unbeaten. These accounts may refer to different stages or competitions, but the available sources do not resolve the distinctions.

The opening match of the 1931 league was a Jerusalem derby between Maccabi Hashmonaim and Hapoel Jerusalem. More than 5,000 spectators watched Hashmonaim win 8–0, with Akiva Zuvner scoring a hat trick. The championship match was moved from Jerusalem to the Sarafand military camp because Mandate authorities prohibited football in Jerusalem on Shabbat; 10,000 spectators watched the British police team defeat Hapoel Haifa 2–0. The first Tel Aviv derby between Maccabi and Hapoel took place in 1928, with Maccabi winning 3–0 and then 2–1 in a rematch a week later. Hapoel, founded in 1923 and restarted in 1927, was described as a working-class club associated with socialist and Marxist Jews.

Football also generated cultural and religious friction. A 1912 newspaper praised a Saturday match in Rishon LeZion, but Orthodox circles opposed Sabbath games, and confrontations over the issue occurred in Jerusalem in 1931. Physical-education teacher Zvi Nishri wrote Kadur Regel, a 23-page booklet that provided the first Hebrew translation of football’s laws. It introduced Hebrew terms for positions and rules including striker, defender, goalkeeper, penalty kick, and offside, alongside basic exercises and health guidance that warned against playing in hot weather.

A separate pre-state episode concerned the 1930 World Cup. A Palestine team sought to enter the tournament as organizers looked for participants and included Arab and Jewish local-league players as well as nine British players. It wore shirts bearing the letter “P,” but the British government barred its colonies from participating. The team disbanded after returning, and the association sought to form a side representing the Jewish community alone. The sources therefore distinguish this proposed, non-participating team from the later Mandatory Palestine side that competed in World Cup qualifying.

The Mandatory Palestine team’s first international match was a 1934 World Cup qualifying tie against Egypt. It lost 7–1 away in Cairo and 4–1 at home, an aggregate score of 11–2; Abraham Nudelman scored the team’s first goal. Contemporary newspaper accounts described the encounters as friendly, including the welcome extended to both delegations. One report even recorded the corner-kick count in the return match as “0–2 in favor of the Hebrews.” Palestine also lost both matches to Greece in the 1938 qualifying campaign, 3–1 at home and 1–0 in Athens.

After Israel’s establishment, regular league play began in May 1949. In the opening match, Hapoel Tel Aviv beat Hapoel Rishon LeZion 2–0; Eliyahu Reichner scored the first goal in league history in the ninth minute. Maccabi Tel Aviv won the first season’s championship with 21 victories, two defeats, and one draw, while Yossele Merimovich led the scoring with 25 goals. This Israeli competition was distinct from the 1931–32 Mandate league.

The domestic top division was called the National League through the 1998–99 season. The Israeli Premier League was established in summer 1999, and its size and format changed over time: it had 12 teams from 2001, expanded to 16 in 2008, and adopted a 14-team format in 2011–12. The current 14-team season generally runs from late August to May, with two clubs relegated to the National League and two promoted. After the first two rounds, the table divides into an upper group of six and a lower group of eight; the side with the most points at the end is champion. Published descriptions also give different team totals, including accounts listing 12 or 16 teams. Such figures refer to particular accounts or periods and should not be read as a single timeless format.

A 2021 overview described the broader men’s structure as including two professional leagues, three amateur leagues, and dozens of youth leagues. The State Cup developed from earlier competitions, including an unofficial 1922 tournament won by the South Lancashire Regiment, later cups won by Royal Air Force teams, and the Magen Shimshon competition for Maccabi clubs. These were eventually unified as the People’s Cup, the precursor to the State Cup, a knockout competition open to teams from different league levels. The 1947 final ended in an unusual dispute: after a goal was disallowed, a Beitar Tel Aviv player escaped with the trophy, which was never recovered; Maccabi Tel Aviv was awarded a 3–0 victory.

Club traditions have remained intertwined with social and political identities. Beitar Yerushalayim was founded in 1936 as the football branch of the Beitar movement. It won its first State Cup in 1976 and its first top-league championship in 1987. Hapoel Jerusalem, founded in 1926, won the State Cup and finished third in the top league in 1973. Another account says Beitar began winning State Cups in the late 1970s under Uri Malmilian; Arkady Gaydamak bought the club in 2005, and 21 months later it won the league title for the first time in nine years.

The top division’s commercial and organizational development reflects wider changes in the game. Academic research contrasts the political organization of football in the 1950s with the privatization of clubs and treatment of players as commodities from 1990 onward, arguing that the political and economic environment constrained the sport in both periods. From 1950, three sports federations affiliated with different political camps organized football. In the first decade of the state, players could not receive material remuneration and were expected to show loyalty to their clubs and the state. Some nevertheless went abroad to play professionally, provoking sanctions and harsh reactions from the media, the IFA, and politicians in Zionist organizations.

The IFA regulates football nationally. In 1992 it established a Budget Control Authority to oversee the finances of teams in the men’s Premier League and National League and the Women’s Premier League. Under the described regulations, clubs with unapproved budgets cannot play in their registered league, and players and coaches whose contracts have not been approved cannot participate that season. In 2022–23, the men’s Premier League had 14 teams and the National League 16. The professional leagues had a combined equity deficit of NIS 281 million, about 18.5 percent higher in real terms than in 1999–2000; 19 of the 28 analyzed clubs had negative equity. The audit concluded that budget control had not achieved its intended goal of improving clubs’ financial stability.

A reform package approved in 2025 set stricter professional-club standards beginning in 2026–27, including minimum budgets of NIS 18 million for Premier League clubs and NIS 5 million for National League clubs, as well as baseline youth-development and infrastructure criteria. A nationwide third division, Liga Artzit, was planned to begin in 2027–28 with 18 teams; up to six could be B teams of Premier League clubs, primarily for players under 23. These plans indicate a continuing effort to reshape club development and financial requirements.

Israel’s international football history has been shaped by competition, achievement, and changing access to regional confederations. The national association’s pre-state roots are reflected in the 1934 World Cup qualifying debut of the Mandatory Palestine team, while a reference account separately dates the first side representing the State of Israel to a 1948 match in New York City. Israel’s first World Cup qualifying campaign as a state was for the 1950 tournament, against Yugoslavia; it lost 6–0 in Belgrade and 5–2 in Tel Aviv. It was subsequently eliminated by Greece and Yugoslavia for 1954, Wales for 1958, Italy for 1962, and Bulgaria for 1966.

The 1958 campaign illustrates how refusals to play affected qualification. Turkey, Indonesia, and Sudan declined to face Israel, after which FIFA arranged a playoff with Wales; Wales won both matches. Britannica similarly summarizes that refusals by Muslim states enabled Israel to win a qualifying round without playing a match. Such events formed part of the political context of Israel’s changing regional participation.

Israel joined the Asian Football Confederation in 1954 and won its first senior international title at the 1964 Asian Cup, which it hosted. The team defeated Hong Kong, India, and South Korea. In the final at Ramat Gan, Mutsi Leon and Gideon Tish scored in a 2–1 victory over South Korea, and Nahum Stelmach lifted the trophy. The opening ceremony included Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Shiye Glazer lighting a ceremonial torch, and recently retired goalkeeper Yaakov Hodorov administering an oath to the players.

The final was played before a sell-out crowd of 50,000 at the National Stadium. Israel had beaten Hong Kong and India, so a draw would have sufficed against South Korea, but it won. The 15-player squad consisted of amateurs, many manual workers or soldiers who trained three afternoons a week; many came from Maccabi Jaffa, Hapoel Petah Tikva, and Hapoel Tel Aviv. Israel had finished runner-up in the 1956 and 1960 tournaments, won four consecutive under-19 Asian championships from 1964 through 1967, and placed third at the 1968 Asian Cup. The 1964 title helped propel a generation toward the World Cup: only three players from that squad—Mordechai Spiegler, goalkeeper Itzik Visoker, and defender David Primo—also appeared in 1970.

Israel’s only appearance in the senior FIFA World Cup finals came in Mexico in 1970. It advanced through Asian qualifying after beating New Zealand twice and then defeating Australia 2–1 on aggregate, with a 1–0 home win and a 1–1 draw in Sydney. North Korea was removed from Asian qualifying after refusing to play Israel; Israel then reached the final round and defeated Australia in the playoff. At the finals, Israel lost 0–2 to Uruguay, drew 1–1 with Sweden, and drew 0–0 with Italy, finishing last in its group. Spiegler scored Israel’s only goal in the tournament, against Sweden.

The World Cup appearance raised Israeli players’ international profile and was followed by the professionalization of the league, creating opportunities for players abroad. It was also a striking episode in regional relations. One account says the qualification was met with embarrassment and little coverage in the Arab world; a Yemeni stamp issue initially printed Israel’s name among the participating countries, before black bars were used to cover it. Israel’s passage through qualifying and its participation thus unfolded amid political exclusion as well as sporting achievement.

Israel’s Asian participation lasted roughly two decades, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Israeli teams recorded significant sporting victories but faced hostility, boycotts, and exclusion from tournaments. Sources date the formal expulsion from the AFC to 1974 or August 1976, reflecting differences in the recorded stages or dating of the process. One account says a Kuwait-introduced resolution passed 17–13, with six abstentions; it links the vote to boycotts and notes that it followed a high-profile match in Tehran in which Iran beat Israel 1–0 on an Israeli own goal. The expulsion and its motives are politically contested, and the available accounts describe its context without establishing a single uncontested explanation.

After leaving Asian competition, Israel sought a place in European football. One source says the IFA joined UEFA 18 years after the 1974 AFC expulsion; another describes Israel as joining UEFA in 1992, while the sources also characterize the transition as beginning in 1991 or culminating in full membership in 1994. These dates may describe different stages of a transition, but the materials do not fully reconcile them. Israel now competes in UEFA competitions.

The IFA’s international recognition was also raised in political debate. In 2015, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder stated that the association had been recognized as a FIFA member in 1929, before the State of Israel was established. At the 2015 FIFA Congress, the Palestinian Football Association withdrew its call to suspend Israel and an amended resolution passed with 165 votes in favor and 18 against. A proposed joint Israeli-Palestinian group, including international observers, was to address issues such as Palestinian players’ movement and the participation of five Israeli clubs located beyond the Green Line in the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. Palestinian association president Jibril Rajoub called for banning sporting activity in the occupied territories, while IFA president Ofer Eini said the clubs were mainly youth clubs and should be permitted to participate.

Regional sporting contact has likewise been politically sensitive. An INSS analysis recounts that Mohamed Salah, then playing for FC Basel, considered whether to travel to Israel for a Champions League qualifying match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, ultimately played, and scored for his club. The same discussion cites Egyptian coach Hassan Shehata’s rejection of a reported possibility of coaching Israel’s national team as an illustration of the political sensitivity of sporting contact, sometimes debated under the label “normalization.”

In 2019, more than one-third of Israel’s national team consisted of Israeli Arab players, with an even higher proportion in the youth team. Academic research describes a longer transition: in the 1950s, the national team represented the Jewish-Zionist sector, while an Arab player joined in 1976 and Arab players and players not recognized as Jewish under halakha have played on the team since. The study characterizes the team as having become, unintentionally, a team of all Israeli citizens.

Arab participation also grew within domestic leagues. The number of Arab teams in the country’s top four divisions rose from eight in 1976–77 to 21 in 1992 and 40 by 2001; their share of those divisions increased from 7 percent in 1977 to 35 percent in 2001. Many represented smaller towns: in 1997–98, three Arab teams in the second division came from towns of 15,000–25,000 residents, while ten third-division Arab teams represented towns with a median population of about 13,000.

Ittihad Abna Sakhnin’s National Cup win on May 18, 2004, marked a prominent achievement: it was the first Arab team to win the competition. Club director Mazen Ghenayem received calls from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasir Arafat. Sharon said he was confident the team would represent Israel honorably in Europe; Arafat said it had brought pride to the Arab nation. The episode illustrates how the same sporting success could carry meanings across more than one national or communal frame.

Research on Arab footballers and supporters emphasizes that participation does not produce one uniform interpretation. One analysis describes football as both a sphere of professional achievement and a site for expressing competing identities. It argues that Hebrew media often present the game as integrative and merit-based, with national identity treated as irrelevant, while many Arab sports journalists emphasize Arab or Palestinian identity and collective pride. The study also notes that Arab players, administrators, and fans may stress professionalism and shared experiences with Jewish fans. These are interpretations of social dynamics, not a single view shared by all participants.

A study of Arab male supporters of Bnei Sakhnin F.C., an Arab club in Sakhnin, examines the interaction of club, ethnic, and national identity. Its authors argue that supporters cannot base identity on the club alone, because the status of Arabs in Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also shape the experience of fandom. Football can therefore serve as a source of local belonging while remaining connected to questions extending beyond the pitch.

The wider history of fandom has changed alongside club structures. A study spanning three decades traces a movement from passively following clubs identified with political parties toward more active support and involvement in club management. It also identifies shifts from party politics toward nationalism and ethnocentrism among fans, and from support for local clubs toward support for foreign ones. Another account of football and nationalism argues that the sport initially served Zionist purposes and helped integrate people into a Jewish national framework; as society changed, football became more commercial, local attachments competed with national ones, and the national team came to represent citizens beyond the Jewish-Zionist sector, though the author qualifies that reach as “almost.”

Football is widely described as Israel’s most popular sport both to watch and to play. Other accounts likewise rank it as the leading sport by spectator interest, television ratings, or money involved, while a Jewish Virtual Library description says it edges basketball and reports crowds of up to 20,000 for games. These are source-reported descriptions rather than current attendance measurements.

Women’s football has its own institutional and competitive history. A 2025 account dates the sport’s beginnings in Israel to 1970, the formation of the women’s national team to 1997, and the first women’s league to 1999. It describes a three-tier league structure and reports that the national team had recently been promoted from UEFA League C to League B.

The Women’s Premier League is overseen by the IFA Budget Control Authority, but the State Comptroller’s 2024 audit did not include women’s football in its examination of budgetary control. The audit’s financial findings on the men’s professional leagues therefore do not provide a parallel assessment of the women’s game.

Football’s significance in Israel rests on more than its popularity. It has connected pre-state sporting organizations to the institutions of the state, provided public symbols of national representation, and offered routes to professional achievement and international competition. Its club landscape has carried the imprint of political movements, while the national team’s changing composition and Arab clubs’ successes have made the sport an arena for participation across communal lines.

The game has also produced innovations with international reach. After Israel’s 1968 Olympic quarter-final against Bulgaria ended level after extra time, Bulgaria advanced by coin toss. Israeli sports journalist Joseph Dagan proposed deciding drawn matches by penalty shoot-out, a method already in use in Israeli cup matches by May 1968. IFA chairman Micha Almog brought the proposal to FIFA, which approved the method in 1970. German referee Karl Wald also claimed to have invented the approach independently at around the same time.

International competition has given Israeli football distinctive milestones, from the 1964 Asian Cup victory to the 1970 World Cup finals, while political boycotts and changing confederation affiliation have shaped the routes by which the national team could compete. At home, league structures, club finances, professional status, and investment in youth and infrastructure remain matters of institutional change. The 2025 reforms set out new budgetary and development requirements and plans for an additional third division, against the background of the State Comptroller’s finding that earlier financial controls had not stabilized professional clubs.

Football in Israel has been affected by racism and violence as well as by disputes over identity and regional politics. An INSS study reports that the chant “death to Arabs” has been heard at matches, directed at Arab teams or at Arab players on Jewish teams. It also describes hostility toward Jewish teams playing in Arab towns and toward Jewish players on Arab teams. A historical review argues that players were initially often implicated in on-pitch violence while the IFA was practically helpless for political reasons. It says on-pitch incidents later decreased as the game commercialized, crowds became more central to patterns of violence, and ethnicity and nationality—within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—became a major later trigger.

Organized responses included the “Kicking racism and violence off the fields” program, begun in April 2003 to address racism and incitement at National League and Premier League stadiums. The INSS study links this activity to Israel’s inclusion in Football Against Racism in Europe in 2006. On July 30, 2008, the Knesset passed the Prohibition of Violence in Sports Law, which provides for up to two years’ imprisonment for racist statements at football stadiums. In 2013 the Israel Police and IFA announced an intensified campaign against stadium racism: dozens of fans were arrested and questioned, some were barred from stadiums, and fans associated with some clubs faced indictments for racism.

Other disputes concern the meaning of sporting contact and the boundaries of international participation. Debates over “normalization” have surrounded matches and possible appointments involving Israelis and people from Arab countries, while FIFA discussions addressed Palestinian players’ movement and the eligibility of five Israeli clubs beyond the Green Line. Accounts of Israel’s exclusion from Asian football connect it to boycotts and refusals to play, but the causes and political motives of the 1974 expulsion remain contested.

Academic studies also interpret football’s relationship to Zionism, commercialization, and national identity in different ways. Those analyses describe broad historical patterns and arguments rather than establishing a single consensus about what football means to all players and supporters.

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