In October 2016, exactly five years ago, the most ardent Hapoel Tel Aviv fans - the "Ultras" - made their way to their equipment warehouse in the Florentine neighborhood near the team's home stadium, Bloomfield. All they wanted was to store their cheerleading gear after an away game. But members of Betar Jerusalem's La Familia organization prepared a well-planned ambush for them.
The red gang was led by Yuri Sadletsky, until then the undisputed leader of the Ultras. When they arrived at the warehouse, the rioters surprised them and attacked them with batons and chains. The same incident, one of the organization's leaders, Omar Golan, pulled out a hammer and slammed it into the head of Sadletsky, who collapsed and was taken to hospital in critical condition.
That event was a defining moment in the history of the fan wars in Israeli football. Until the year 2000, the violence on the pitches in Israel was accidental, unplanned and certainly did not include groups of fans who organized especially to hit each other. But with the entry of Israeli football into European factories, fans have discovered a new world of sympathy culture - which includes drinking alcohol, using drugs and organized walking to games - for better or worse. The organization is reflected in the upgrading of the cheer displays, but also in the initiated violence against other fan groups.
The night of horror in Florence changed the rules of the game: Golan, who was accused by the court of possessing a hammer, was sentenced to ten years in prison, and contrary to his tough image in the stands - fainted when the sentence was announced.
In addition to the prison sentence, he was also ordered to pay Sedelecki one hundred thousand shekels.
Judo, who was a member of the organization and became a police informant, provided all the details about the attack and actually dismantled the organization from within.
Another member of the same attack has since died of illness.
On the red side, they have not recovered to this day from the same incident, which also changed the two organizations beyond recognition.
Do not live in Jerusalem
If that trauma seemed to put an end to the organized culture of violence, and certainly on the part of "La Familia", the new season in the Premier League proved that reality is stronger than anything, and a new generation of racists has sprung up in the home of "La Familia". The
motif of racism once again dictates the spirit: neither to Arab players nor to Muslim players - even if the taboo involves the dissolution of the team and its significant weakening. His time to fight "La Familia" almost alone, but did not receive significant support from the silent majority of Betar fans, those who despaired of "La Familia" almost complete control of the team and the stands.
One of the interesting facts about the change in the Betar sympathy pattern is where the fans come to support the club. "La Familia" usually includes fans who do not live in Jerusalem. Herzlia and other communities. Jerusalem is almost no name.
because many of the local Beitar fans have lost interest in the group because of a combination of two factors - the weakening of the professional team in the grass and the process of return to orthodoxy city - Beitar became the only team in the Premier League that plays only on Saturday night or On weekdays, this of course did not cause the fans to return to the stands.
The bottom line is that Betar Jerusalem is the only team in Israel that sells more tickets to its away games than to its home games.
In recent years this fact is no longer flattering, given the fact that it attracts many extremists, regardless of abilities on the field itself.
La Familia activists, who did not like the war declared by Moshe Hogg, have decided in the past year and a half to boycott Betar's home games. Teddy, once the most home stadium in Israel, has become one of the saddest places in the industry. However, La Familia "They come to the away games, and there they terrorize the other fans, as happened this week in the game against Hapoel Tel Aviv in Bloomfield.
Eli Ohana // Photo: Oren Ben Hakon,
The 10,000th Challenge
Celebrating on Thursday in IDF waves called for advancing legislation against the organization, saying: “Most of our audience is normative and fearful. We must wake up before there is a disaster. "Attorney Itai Barda, representing La Familia, claimed in response:" We have been made criminals, every game has curses, and they do not curse but defend and strive above and beyond. "
Last Sunday a new record was set. The TV cameras captured some of the members of "La Familia" beating their friends to the stands just because they encouraged the team's new Muslim player. On Wednesday night, one assailant was arrested by the Yiftach District Police (indicating, of course, that he is not a resident of Jerusalem either), and it is estimated that in the coming days all those involved in the attack will be arrested, given the fact that they were photographed from every possible angle.
Eli Ohana, the last Betar sergeant still active in the group, asked in a rare statement from members of La Familia "to leave the group at rest." Ohana called the activists of the organization "enemies and haters of Betar." He is not wrong, as his team has become in recent years by those fans - and also by politicians looking for a convenient electorate - a fertile ground for political activity, which is not at all based on the love of football. Even Itamar Ben Gvir, who has more than once enjoyed the support of "La Familia", asked the fans to "lower the flames".
This coming Sunday, the biggest test of Betar in recent years will be held. The team decided that the tickets for the game against Hapoel Haifa at Teddy Stadium will be sold for only NIS 50, "in order to fill the stadium with burnt and veteran fans." Israel, where even fans of the Hapoel Tel Aviv - the most hated rival Beitar Jerusalem fans - buy tickets to the game and contributed them, in order to express support for his war against Moses celebrates a wayward organization.
If you really reach 10,000 fans Teddy old Betar generation, be it A first step on the road to the group's recovery from the malignant racism that has grown in it in recent years.
If the stadium is left orphaned again, it will be possible to determine definitively that the club has been captured by the extremists.
