Why Israel Shut Down an Entire Football Division, and Why it Didn't Work
A year ago, Israel's third-tier division was suspended for astonishing levels of match-fixing. Now, a club, FC Kiryat Yam, that was seen as a model team just had 17 players and coaches arrested.
In February 2025, Israel’s football authorities did something rarely attempted by any league around the world. They stopped an entire division mid-season and later wiped it from the calendar after concluding that more than half its games were fixed.
Liga Alef North, the country’s third tier, was shut down.
At the top of the corrupted table sat FC Kiryat Yam, a modest club from the city of Haifa. Despite its leading position, investigators found no proof Kiryat Yam was involved in the match-fixing fiasco.
When the league was shut down, the Israel Football Association (IFA) promoted the club to the second‑tier National League on the merits of its clean track record.
On January 26, that redemption arc collapsed.
Israeli police arrested 17 players and senior officials from Kiryat Yam after a months‑long undercover operation, alleging that a criminal organisation had used the club for three years to fix matches and launder millions of dollars through illegal betting in Israel and abroad.
So how was their involvement so badly missed?
