A new commercial sponsorship of the Israeli referees' association has provoked a heated debate about the boundaries between club interests and match officiating, after it emerged that the backer is a businessman long and publicly identified with Maccabi Tel Aviv. The deal, announced on Friday evening, places the logo of Start Koppel Group Ltd on the official shorts worn by referees in the Premier League and the men's National League.
The agreement is structured as a secondary sponsorship running for three seasons. It is worth 375,000 shekels in 2026/27 and 425,000 shekels in 2027/28, with an optional extension at 475,000 shekels for 2028/29.
Beyond the shirt — or rather shorts — placement, the package includes LED advertising at State Cup semi-finals and finals and at home matches of the national team, eleven match tickets, joint content promotions and professional lectures delivered by top-flight referees.
The controversy centres on the identity of the sponsor. Micky Koppel, founder and owner of the Koppel Group, is a self-declared lifelong Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, and his company has sponsored the club for well over a decade, with its logo carried on the shorts of Maccabi's first and youth teams.
That his brand will now also appear on the shorts of the officials who referee Maccabi's matches struck many supporters of rival clubs as, at minimum, an unfortunate optic. Criticism surfaced quickly on social media, where the announcement triggered sharp verbal exchanges between Koppel himself and football fans questioning the propriety of the arrangement. No club or official body has been reported as lodging a formal objection.
The referees' association, chaired by Giora Anbar, together with the Israel Football Association, moved to defend the deal. In a clarification addressing exclusivity and conflict of interest, the bodies stressed that the company holds no exclusivity, that its parallel sponsorship of Maccabi Tel Aviv imposes no limitation whatsoever, and that Israeli football has long accommodated sponsors backing multiple institutions at once, citing Fattal Hotels, Disenhaus and the Blue energy-drink brand as precedents.
The episode lands at a sensitive moment for Israeli officiating. Anbar has previously written to federation leadership warning of a deteriorating public discourse towards referees, and any perception — however contested — that match officials carry the colours of one club's benefactor is likely to keep the governance question alive as the new season approaches.
Update, 19 July: Koppel has now responded publicly at length, saying he regards the connection between his company and football as "natural, positive and blessed" and that the group has invested in Israeli football "out of genuine love for the sport" for nearly two decades. He denied any conflict of interest, describing the referees' deal as a legitimate commercial collaboration, and claimed much of the online backlash stems from "sophisticated bot operations" manufacturing artificial outrage.
While acknowledging he has supported Maccabi Tel Aviv since childhood, he noted his company advertises at all stadiums, in all leagues and alongside all clubs.
