Ironi Tiberias will begin the new Israeli Premier League season already six points in the red, and that is before anyone even mentions the club's other, unresolved scandal. ONE's season summary paints a club that spent the summer fighting on multiple fronts rather than planning for the campaign ahead.
The points penalty stems from last season's "double contracts" budget-fraud affair. The Israeli Football Association's investigative unit initially sought a 30-point deduction over irregularities in the club's budget reporting, before Tiberias reached a plea bargain in April 2026: eight points were docked from the 2025/26 campaign, a further six carry into this coming season, alongside a 500,000-shekel fine and a freeze on registering new players in the January 2027 transfer window.
That case also cost the club its co-owner. Miki Bitan, Aryeh Kalmenson's partner at both Tiberias and the Doroth insurance group that bankrolls it, was banned from all football activity for seven years starting June 1, 2026, and is now barred from any involvement at the club he helped build.
A second, separate scandal followed almost immediately. Ashdod SC lodged a formal complaint alleging Tiberias players were given excessive saline infusions before a May 3 relegation-playoff match the two sides played, which Tiberias won 3-0. Investigators say the volumes involved exceeded the amount permitted under World Anti-Doping Agency guidelines within a 12-hour window; some reports have put the figures far higher again, though the precise numbers remain disputed.
Head coach Eliran Chodda, technical director Chen Sol, fitness coach Shlomi Vardanto and five players — captain Guy Chadida, David Kaltins, Niv Gutlieb, Sambinia and Yonatan Tapper — were provisionally suspended from July 5, 2026. The case now sits before the Israel Football Association's sports tribunal, with no final ruling yet and a punishment that could reportedly extend to a further points deduction or even relegation.
For Chodda, the suspension effectively ends a five-year spell in charge regardless of the tribunal's eventual verdict — the club does not expect him back on the touchline. Alon Ziv, who holds the required pro coaching licence, has been installed as the new head coach, with Moti Krispiel, previously Chodda's assistant, working alongside him in what amounts to a hurried succession plan.
Owner Aryeh Kalmenson has pushed back hard against the accusations. "They tried to frame us — they want Tiberias to go down a division," he said, according to Ynet, arguing the club has been singled out for harsher and faster treatment than other clubs facing similar suspicions, and that the speed of the sanctions before formal charges were even filed points to a campaign against the club rather than even-handed enforcement.
Off the pitch, ONE reports the club enters the season with a budget of roughly 21 million shekels, of which about 13 million is earmarked for player wages — modest by Ligat Ha'al standards for a club fighting to stay in the division. Season-ticket sales, at under 350 by the club's own count, point to a fan base worn down by two straight summers of scandal rather than transfer excitement.
The playing squad itself has been reshuffled, with departures and new arrivals across the summer as the technical staff try to reset a group unsettled by suspensions and an ownership rift. With key figures still sidelined pending the tribunal's ruling, the exact makeup of the matchday squad for the opening weeks remains unsettled.
Pundits, per ONE, are forecasting a 14th-place finish — bottom of the table — for a club that opens the campaign already docked points and facing the possibility of more sanctions to come. For Tiberias, this season's target was never going to be about European qualification or a cup run; it is simply about surviving both the league table and the sports tribunal at the same time.
