Eli Ohana, the man Beitar Jerusalem fans still call "the King," has finally addressed the reports that Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing him for a reserved spot on the Likud election list — and rather than the flat denial he gave days earlier, he now admits the idea genuinely tempts him.
"The political arena has burned inside me for years — I might very much want this, but not at any price," Ohana told ONE, in his fullest comments yet on speculation that has swirled since Channel 12 first reported Netanyahu was considering securing him a slot on the party's Knesset list.
It marks a shift from earlier in the week, when Ohana was confronted live on his own 103FM radio show and insisted he knew nothing about it. "I don't know what you're talking about. No one has spoken to me," he said on air, an answer his co-host publicly doubted at the time.
According to Ohana's account to ONE, it was not Netanyahu himself who made contact but Amit Segal, the veteran political commentator turned Likud figure, who reached out on the party's behalf. Ohana said several other people have called him in recent days about the idea, though he does not know most of them personally.
His wife, Adi, is said to be divided on the prospect — wary of what political life would mean for the family, but ready to back him if he ultimately decides to go for it.
Ohana has been here before. Eleven years ago he agreed to join Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home party for the 2015 election, taking the number ten spot on its list, only for the arrangement to collapse within days and for him to step back almost as quickly as he had signed on.
That experience, he indicated, is why he is in no rush this time: he wants to "listen and decide" only once — and if — a formal offer actually lands, rather than react to reports and rumours.
Likud minister Eli Cohen has already weighed in publicly in Ohana's favour, calling him "a symbol" and saying he would be worthy of one of the prime minister's reserved list spots, according to Walla News.
The timing adds intrigue: Netanyahu is reported to have only around four secured spots left to hand out on the Likud list, and it remains unclear whether the party will even hold primaries given the current security situation — a separate reserved slot floated for Tali Gvaili, mother of October 7 victim Ronnie Gvaili, has also stalled, per Mako.
Now 62, Ohana remains one of Israeli football's most storied figures — a prolific striker for Beitar Jerusalem and the national team through the 1980s and 90s — and today a fixture of Israeli sports media as a pundit and radio host. Whether he adds a Knesset seat to that résumé, he insists, is a decision still very much up in the air.
