Eli Ohana, the Beitar Jerusalem forward Israeli football still calls "King Ohana" more than a quarter-century after he hung up his boots, may be about to add a Knesset seat to his trophy cabinet. ONE reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to reserve Ohana a guaranteed slot on Likud's list for the coming general election.
The move would come through Israel's "shiryun" mechanism, which lets a sitting party leader place a fixed number of allies directly onto the list, bypassing the vote of registered members. Netanyahu has been negotiating exactly that kind of arrangement with Likud's constitution committee ahead of the party's internal primary, scheduled for August 17, before the general election set for October 27.
Nothing is finalised. Ohana's inclusion depends on how many reserved slots Netanyahu ultimately secures and where the Beitar legend is placed within them — details ONE says have not yet been settled publicly.
For a large slice of the Israeli public, Ohana needs no introduction. Now 62, he starred for Beitar Jerusalem across two spells between 1980 and 1999, helping the club to its first league title and cup silverware alongside strike partner Uri Malmilian, and later won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup with Belgium's KV Mechelen in 1988 before a spell at Portugal's Braga. He earned dozens of caps for Israel between 1984 and 1997.
His football afterlife has been almost as prominent as his playing career: Ohana managed Beitar Jerusalem, Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, Maccabi Petah Tikva and Hapoel Kfar Saba, and served as Beitar Jerusalem's chairman from 2017 to 2022, a period that included the club's high-profile Shield of Honor recognition from President Reuven Rivlin in 2017.
Politics, though, is not entirely new territory. Ohana was placed among the top slots on Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home list ahead of the 2015 election for the 20th Knesset, only to withdraw within days after the appointment drew sharp public backlash. In 2018 he re-emerged briefly to back Ze'ev Elkin's unsuccessful bid for Jerusalem mayor.
A guaranteed Likud slot this time would mark Ohana's first genuine entry into national politics rather than a supporting or symbolic role — assuming Netanyahu follows through once the primary process concludes next month.
For now, the story remains a single, sourced report relayed by ONE via Channel 12 News, and Beitar's faithful will be watching the Likud list as closely as they watch the club's own results this summer.
