Shimon Mizrahi

Mizrahi was born in Tel Aviv in 1939 and grew up in a family with connections to Maccabi Tel Aviv and competitive sport.[1] His father, a bank manager, played soccer and tennis for Maccabi Tel Aviv, while his mother played tennis.[1] As a boy, Mizrahi accompanied his father to Maccabi soccer games and developed an enthusiasm for sport, although his preference at that stage was soccer rather than basketball.[1]

He graduated from Tel Aviv’s Geula Gymnasium and entered the Israel Defense Forces in 1957.[1] Until 1960, he served as a Military Police investigator in Northern Command.[1] His military service also overlapped with the beginning of his legal education: he started studying law during his final year in the army.[1]

Mizrahi completed his legal internship in 1964 and subsequently worked for the lawyer Baruch Zeiger.[1] He remained with Zeiger until 1979, when he established his own law office.[1] Alongside his civilian career, he continued serving in the Military Police reserves, attained the rank of colonel and was called up during Israel’s wars.[1]

In July 1969, supporters and club officials selected Mizrahi, then a young lawyer, to help lead Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball out of severe financial and organizational difficulty.[6] Concerned supporters had formed a group and chosen him as its chairman before he became chairman of the basketball department.[1] Club chairman Israel Goral, whose work commitments limited his availability, asked Mizrahi to manage the team for a short period.[1] After the serving chairman stepped down, Mizrahi took his place.[6]

What began as a temporary responsibility became the central sporting commitment of his life.[2][3] Recalling the original request years later, Mizrahi said, “The short period lasted until today,” in a remark translated from Hebrew.[1] His work for Maccabi was performed on a voluntary basis, alongside his legal career.[4] By July 2007, he had served as chairman for 38 years, and a later account marking his 80th birthday described his leadership as extending over more than half a century.[3][7]

Mizrahi’s ambitions for the club extended beyond resolving its immediate difficulties.[4] He identified Real Madrid as the model for the basketball organization he wanted Maccabi to become and later said that the club had achieved that goal in a relatively short time.[4] At the 2011 Israel Prize ceremony, he again recalled how supporters had approached him during the 1969 crisis and described the effort to match the Spanish club.[4]

One of Mizrahi’s earliest changes was to end free admission at Maccabi’s old court and begin selling tickets.[6] The measure formed part of the effort to rescue the club from its economic crisis and introduce more professional management.[2][6] Board members bought tickets themselves to set an example, making the new admission policy applicable to the club’s own leadership as well as its spectators.[6]

His approach also involved closer supervision of the team’s daily work.[6] A former player recalled that Mizrahi was much more involved than his predecessor and attended every practice.[6] Another former member of the club’s staff remembered the introduction of standards governing discipline, player recruitment and finances.[6] These changes took place in a basketball environment in which players often trained only twice a week and maintained jobs outside the sport.[6]

Mizrahi and team manager Shmuel “Shmaluk” Machrovsky worked to obtain sponsorship and develop new ways of promoting Maccabi.[6] Mizrahi’s connections helped arrange a meeting that led to a sponsorship agreement with Elite.[6] Because sponsor names could not then appear on players’ uniforms, the advertising was placed beside the court instead.[6] The sponsorship relationship continued until 2008.[6]

Recruitment was another component of the club’s development.[2][4] Mizrahi recognized that foreign players would be needed if Maccabi was to succeed, and the club began signing American players after he took charge.[2][4] Tal Brody and Aulcie Perry were among the players on the team that won Maccabi’s first European championship in 1977.[2]

Competitive success did not eliminate financial pressures.[8] Speaking at a sports-and-business panel in 2005, Mizrahi said Maccabi basketball had reached break-even only twice in its history.[8] He added that seasons in which the club won all available trophies inevitably exceeded the budget and required money to be brought in from home.[8] His account of those finances placed championship-winning seasons alongside continuing demands for additional funding, rather than treating trophies as evidence that the club had become financially self-sustaining.[8]

Maccabi’s 1977 European Champions Cup victory over Italy’s Mobilgirgi Varese was a defining milestone of Mizrahi’s management.[1] Two months earlier, the club had defeated Soviet champion CSKA Moscow for the first time, playing at a neutral venue in Virton, Belgium.[1] The subsequent European title was Maccabi’s first, and Mizrahi remembered the victory as an unprecedented emotional experience.[1][2] Crowds greeted the team when it returned to Israel.[1]

At the 2011 Israel Prize ceremony, Mizrahi described the 1977 triumph as a moment of “real elation.”[4] The championship was followed by further international successes: Maccabi won the Intercontinental Cup in 1980 and European titles in 1981, 2001, 2004 and 2005.[1][2] Across this period, the club developed into a European basketball powerhouse.[2]

The 2004 championship was won in Tel Aviv, where Maccabi defeated Skipper Bologna in the final by 44 points.[1] The margin was recorded in the Israel Prize career account as the largest ever for the final.[1] Maccabi retained its European championship in 2005 and also defeated the Toronto Raptors, another international milestone highlighted in the Israel Prize account.[1]

Domestic dominance accompanied the European achievements.[4] A 2011 account described a 23-year run of Israeli league championships extending from 1969 through 1992.[4] By July 2007, Maccabi had accumulated 37 Israeli championships and five European titles during Mizrahi’s chairmanship.[3] The later Israel Prize career tally recorded 39 Israeli league championships, 30 State Cups, five European titles, 13 appearances in the European Cup final and one Intercontinental Cup.[1]

The same career tally listed 20 games against NBA teams, consisting of five victories and 15 defeats.[1] These figures describe the record accumulated by the time of the Israel Prize account, rather than a current-season total.[1] A later account marking Mizrahi’s 80th birthday gave a record of 43 Israeli championships, 36 State Cups and six European championships during his leadership, together with an Intercontinental Cup and an Adriatic League title.[7] Those totals concern the team’s achievements under his administration, not individual playing honors.[7]

In 2004, Mizrahi persuaded European Basketball Association officials to keep the Final Four in Tel Aviv despite the security situation.[2] His standing within European basketball also helped preserve the staging of games in Israel during periods of war and terrorist attacks.[1] The effort to retain the 2004 event preceded Maccabi’s championship victory on its home city’s stage.[2][4]

Under his leadership, Maccabi came to be seen as representing Israel in international sport.[2] That role coexisted with its identity as a local club with rivals within Israeli sport.[2] Mizrahi’s own response to international recognition likewise emphasized a wider national connection: when his inclusion in a leading sports-executives ranking was reported in 2007, he said the honor was “not personal” and that “it belongs to the State of Israel and Israeli sports.”[3]

His administrative work extended well beyond Maccabi’s basketball department.[1] He joined the Maccabi Israel executive in 1976 and FIBA Europe’s legal committee in 1979.[1] From 1996, he was a member of the Israel Olympic Committee, and from 2001 he served as senior deputy chairman of the Israel Basketball Association.[1] He also became a member of the EuroLeague governing board in 2003.[1]

Mizrahi headed Israeli national basketball team delegations to world and European championships.[1] His wider voluntary responsibilities also included leadership of Maccabi Israel’s basketball division.[7] In 2009, he served as honorary president of the 18th Maccabiah.[1][7] These posts accompanied, rather than replaced, his continuing work at Maccabi Tel Aviv.[1]

By the time of the 2011 Israel Prize ceremony, Maccabi had more than 1,200 children participating in its age-group programs.[4] Its activities under Mizrahi included youth development, basketball schools and leagues, as well as community initiatives.[1] The younger age groups therefore formed part of the club’s work alongside its senior team’s domestic and international competition.[1][4]

Mizrahi described a program of contact between the team and different parts of Israeli society.[1] Children with disabilities were invited to games, while players visited children’s hospitals, schools, army bases and prisons.[1] Explaining the purpose of these activities, he said, “We are part of the community, and the connection with it is very important to us,” in a statement translated from Hebrew.[1]

His personal involvement in the club extended into family arrangements.[2] Family events were scheduled around Maccabi’s games, reflecting the place the team occupied in his daily life.[2] The same sustained commitment was recognized in the account of his long-term voluntary service that accompanied his Israel Prize.[1]

Mizrahi received the Israel Prize for sport and physical culture in 2011.[4][5] The award recognized his long-term voluntary management of Maccabi Tel Aviv, the team’s national and international successes under his leadership and his contribution to raising the profile of Israeli basketball.[4] The selection committee also credited him with introducing new management practices, increasing public awareness of basketball and maintaining a high standard of management in Israeli sport.[4]

At the award ceremony, Mizrahi shared the recognition with the people who had worked alongside him.[4] He said it belonged to the colleagues, players and coaches who had contributed over the years.[4] His remarks also returned to the beginnings of his tenure: the supporters’ request for help in 1969, the ambition to emulate Real Madrid and the emotion of the first European championship in 1977.[4]

The Israel Prize followed earlier public honors.[2] In 2004, Mizrahi lit a ceremonial torch at the state ceremony opening Independence Day events.[2][4] That recognition came in the same year that he helped keep the European Final Four in Tel Aviv and Maccabi won the championship there.[2][4] His selection as honorary president of the 18th Maccabiah followed in 2009.[1]

International recognition included his placement in 2007 among the world’s 50 leading sports managers.[3] The reported ranking put him in 16th place, ahead of figures including NBA commissioner David Stern, FIFA president Sepp Blatter and New York Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner.[3] The recognition came after 38 years as Maccabi chairman, at a point when the club’s record under him included five European titles and 37 Israeli championships.[3]

In the same account marking his 80th birthday and extended service, Mizrahi was reported to have entered the EuroLeague Hall of Fame.[7] By then, his leadership of Maccabi had lasted more than 50 years.[7] His record combined the administration of an internationally successful club with voluntary roles in national and European sports institutions.[1][7]

The management practices associated with his tenure included paid admission, closer attention to training and discipline, and sponsorship development.[2][6] Foreign-player recruitment was another major element of the club’s growth.[2][4] His contribution to Israeli basketball also included youth programs and community activities rather than only the senior team’s trophies.[1] The Israel Prize recognition brought those administrative and public-service elements together with the club’s sporting achievements.[1][4]

Mizrahi’s selection for the 2011 Israel Prize was challenged in a petition alleging a conflict of interest involving selection committee chairman Tal Brody, who had played for Maccabi and was close to Mizrahi.[9] The Supreme Court rejected the petition and ordered the petitioners to pay NIS 40,000 in costs.[9] In its ruling, the court recognized Mizrahi’s long-term voluntary public activity, his contribution to the standing of Israeli sport and basketball, and the national and international achievements associated with his work.[9]