Maccabi Netanya F.C.

Maccabi Netanya is one of Israel’s oldest football clubs and has spent more than 40 years in the country’s top division, with its strongest period falling in the 1970s and 1980s.[1] Its first championship, in 1970/71, was also the first Israeli league title won by a club outside the Gush Dan area.[6]

The club’s championship sides were built substantially around locally developed players.[3] Its nickname, “the Diamonds,” connects the team with Netanya’s diamond industry: several players, including Shraga Topolansky, worked in diamond-cutting shops when the city was a center of that industry.[3]

Founded in 1934, Maccabi Netanya later played at the Box Stadium, or HaKufsa, which was established in 1943.[1][7] Two players closely associated with its championship era began their senior careers at the club during the 1960s: Mordechai “Motale” Spiegler made his professional debut in 1961, while Shraga Bar joined the senior team in 1965.[5][8]

Netanya won its first league championship in 1970/71, finishing 11 points ahead of runner-up Shimshon Tel Aviv under the two-points-for-a-win system then in use.[9] The margin would have been 17 points under the later three-point system.[9] Netanya earned 47 of a possible 60 points, a success rate of 78.3 percent, and scored 44 goals; Spiegler and Eliezer “Leizer” Shlomovitz contributed 13 league goals apiece.[9]

Further championships followed in 1973/74, 1977/78, 1979/80 and 1982/83.[4] The 1977/78 campaign brought the club its first domestic double, combining the league championship with its first State Cup, as well as first place in its Intertoto group.[7] That team included Spiegler, Oded Machnes, goalkeeper Itzhak Visoker, David Lavi, Moshe Griani, Haim and Shraga Bar, and Albert Gazal.[7]

In the 1977/78 State Cup final, Netanya defeated Bnei Yehuda 2–1 at Ramat Gan Stadium before a reported crowd of 45,000.[3] Machnes scored Netanya’s first goal and Griani its second.[3] The 1978 victory remains the club’s sole State Cup title in its recorded honors.[4]

The 1982/83 championship was another emphatic success: Netanya finished 14 points ahead of the runner-up and scored 54 goals.[9] Its average of 1.8 goals per match compared with a league-wide team average of 0.98, while Machnes finished as the league’s leading scorer with 22 goals.[9] Spiegler, by then the coach, famously characterized the competition as “Maccabi Netanya and 15 other teams.”[9]

After its peak, Netanya moved between the National League and the lower Artzit league during the 1990s and early 2000s.[1] In 2016, a 2–0 defeat to Ironi Kiryat Shmona confirmed its relegation after a season in which it had won only one of 28 matches.[10] The club returned to the Premier League in 2016/17 following relegation and financial collapse, and subsequently returned to the upper part of the table.[1] It added the Toto Cup to its honors in 2022/23.[4]

The Box Stadium was remembered for narrow entrances and severe crowding, while former players recalled playing on a surface with very little grass.[3][7] Netanya’s current city stadium opened on November 4, 2012, with a 2–1 victory over Hapoel Tel Aviv; Netanya striker Ahmad Saba scored the first goal at the ground.[11]

The new stadium cost approximately NIS 250 million to construct and had 13,610 seats.[12] Around 14,000 spectators attended Netanya’s debut there, alongside former title-winning players including Spiegler, Machnes, Lavi and Griani.[2] Opening night also brought access and parking difficulties, with some supporters parking two kilometers away.[2] The stadium has hosted other clubs and Israel national-team matches, and in March 2025 it was renamed Miriam Stadium after longtime mayor Miriam Feirberg-Ikar.[11][12]

In May 2025, the club announced an agreement to transfer ownership from a company owned by Eyal Segal to the U.S. investment fund Aliya Capital Partners, led by Ross Kastin.[13] Completion was subject to approval by the football association’s rights-transfer committee.[13] By August 2026, Kastin was identified as the club’s owner.[14]

Spiegler made 385 appearances for Maccabi Netanya.[5] After playing abroad and spending a season with Beitar Tel Aviv, he returned to Israel and began coaching Netanya.[5] His association with the club encompassed both its championship-winning playing generation and the team that won the 1982/83 title under his management.[5][9]

Shraga Bar entered Netanya’s youth division at age nine and reached its senior side at 15 and a half.[8] He played at right back for 13 seasons, from 1965 to 1978, winning three league championships, the State Cup and the Super Cup.[8] He also represented Israel in 34 matches.[8]

The first championship inspired the song “M M M – N N N,” with lyrics by Ehud Manor and a performance by Shlomo Artzi alongside players from the title-winning team.[6] Its refrain, “Let’s run, chase, catch up – first place in the league,” linked the song directly to the club’s 1970/71 success.[6]

Players also participated in Holocaust remembrance activity in 2024, joining players from Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa and Hapoel Katamon at a Zikaron BaSalon session at the German ambassador’s residence in Israel.[15] Participants heard the story of Michael Smuss, a 98-year-old survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.[15]

The club’s 2016 collapse involved unpaid players, 12 departures during the January transfer window and debts estimated at NIS 15 million, with administration a possibility.[10] The financial decline was linked to owner Eli Segev’s departure in late 2014; the municipality was also withholding a promised NIS 1.9 million, while approximately NIS 6 million was reportedly needed to complete the season without liquidation.[10] These figures and explanations were contemporaneous reported estimates, rather than an independent audit.[10]

A 2007 interview study of older supporters at five Israeli Premier League clubs found that, among interviewees at two clubs who opposed Arab players joining their team, most supported Beitar Jerusalem and a minority supported Maccabi Netanya.[16] No exact number was given for the Netanya interviewees, and the findings did not establish a position representative of the wider fanbase or of supporters aged 14–18.[16]

In 2022, Algerian player Ahmed Touba reportedly refused to travel with İstanbul Başakşehir for its match against Netanya in the second qualifying round of the UEFA Europa Conference League.[17] The fixture was hosted in Netanya.[17]