Mass recruitment: What is happening to Hapoel Haifa fans? | Israel today

At the beginning of March, the semi-final of the Haifa Cup derby between Maccabi and Hapoel was called.

When it came to the possibility that the game would move from Bloomfield to Sami Ofer, they realized on the red side that if there was no extraordinary mobilization of the team's fans - the stands would be painted, almost all of them, green.

Tzachi Nakash, the sponsor of the senior team, gathered several fans, including those who previously opposed the management of the club, and together they founded an association whose entire function is to recruit all the team's fans for their most important task this season - qualifying for the state cup final.

The average crowd at Hapoel Haifa's home games this season is lower than 3,000.

Some of the games did not reach 2,000 either, although steps were taken such as free entry for children and women in some of the games.

In conversations between owner Yoav Katz, CEO Ruby Regev and members of the association, they broke their heads over what to do.

In the end, it was decided to establish Chamal, whose entire job, from eight in the morning until midnight, is to sell tickets to Hapoel Haifa fans. hit the road.

To understand how deep and important the story is, and how serious the understanding is that without the mobilization of the fans simply will not come, Tzachi Nakash told "Israel Today": "The wars within the audience over the years have broken it all to pieces.

The crowd was divided.

There was a feeling that Hapoel Haifa had no identity.

Now we talked to the fans, updated on everything and strengthened the sense of belonging.

We worked in full cooperation with the club, he helped us, allowed us to sell and gave inside information.

Credit goes to Yoav Katz and Ruby Regev, for recognizing that you can go with us on this issue.

We did a meeting and worked on full trust, that's what led to the success. "

The second task was to prevent an aggressive sale to Maccabi Haifa fans, who purchased thousands of tickets to the stands of Hapoel fans for the derby in the Premier League.

"We knew there would be an onslaught of Maccabi fans, so it was important for us to lock the sale to their audience," Nakash said.

"I felt like our audience was getting oxygen to their veins. They approached us and bought tickets for them. We took people out of the house who had not been in a single game in the last decade."

Malul, Levy, Bachar and Goldberg, yesterday.

Ready for the evening, Photo: Oded Karni

"We have a spoiled crowd"

To produce "noise" among the red crowd, we bought on the first day a thousand tickets, 500 of them by Nakash himself.

"It was to create demand," Hapoel Haifa explained.

Each fan who purchased a ticket was asked to pass on the name and phone number of two or three more fans he knew, thus expanding the circle of information about the amount of audience.

The telephones worked from morning to evening, and slowly the numbers grew.

Even during the sale, there was an understanding that there was a leakage of tickets towards Maccabi Haifa fans, but these were a few hundred and not thousands, as was the case in the previous derby.

"We have a spoiled audience," members of the association testified.

"Some people have long since given up on football."

To enhance the experience, Nakash hired "Artist 17", at a cost of tens of thousands of shekels.

Shuttles have been set up for the fans, and from 14:00 onwards they will be able to enjoy the happening for the whole family, including performances by singers such as Yizhar Cohen.

"The fans received personal treatment from us, transportation, food, drink, activities for the children. They just had to get out of the house and arrive," Hapoel concluded the operation, ahead of the Cup semi-final against Maccabi Haifa.

Now the ball has passed to the players' feet, and the task on the grass will not be easier.

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