Israeli football's players' union has called on police to open a thorough investigation after two Bnei Sakhnin players said their cars were attacked by a group of Maccabi Netanya supporters following Saturday night's Ligat Ha'al season opener.
The match itself, at Netanya Stadium, ended goalless, a flat 0-0 draw that opened the 2026/27 top-flight campaign for both clubs. It was what happened afterwards, in the car park as players headed home, that has now drawn a formal response from the game's authorities.
Bnei Sakhnin defender Iyad Abu Abid said he was targeted as he left the ground. "A handful of Netanya fans attacked me," he said, according to Israeli sports outlet isport.co.il. Teammate Ilai Hajaj, whose vehicle was also reportedly struck, responded to the episode with a simple, exasperated question: "Where have we gotten to?"
ONE reports that the Israeli Footballers' Union moved quickly to condemn the alleged attack, framing it as a basic matter of player safety rather than an isolated flare-up of local rivalry.
"A footballer must feel secure arriving at and leaving the field," the union said in its statement, stressing that the pressure of a result or the emotion of a local occasion can never be used to justify violence or threats against players.
The union added that it expects "the police and all responsible parties to investigate the incident thoroughly and act severely if an attack indeed occurred" — language that leaves the precise nature of the alleged assault on the vehicles still to be formally established.
The statement also placed Saturday's episode in a wider, more troubling pattern, noting it comes only weeks after separate crowd violence involving supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem. The union used both incidents to press its central point: aggression around Israeli football matches has to stop.
For now, neither Maccabi Netanya nor the police have issued a public account of what exactly occurred outside the stadium. Bnei Sakhnin's players, and their union, are waiting for that to change.
