Moshe Sabag has spent five years dragging Kiryat Gat football back from the dead, and on Sunday he revealed that someone else has noticed the work he has done.
Appearing on the "Sicha HaYom" podcast, the club's professional manager said a rival had been in touch about poaching him. "Yesterday a club contacted me," Sabag said, before confirming, when pressed, that the approach came with "an offer with a lot of money." ONE reports that the interested club is Hapoel Nir Ramat Hasharon, a Liga Alef side relegated from Liga Leumit last season.
Sabag played it down rather than confirm any move. "It doesn't matter," he said of the offer, while stopping short of ruling out a future away from the club he helped build from nothing.
That reluctance is easy to understand given the story he has authored in Kiryat Gat. The original Maccabi Kiryat Gat, which had spent two spells in Liga Leumit earlier this century, collapsed under accumulated debt in 2020. Sabag, a former player at the club, refounded it with Ilan Kanfo that year in Liga Gimel, the fourth tier of Israeli football.
The rebuild has been rapid. Kiryat Gat won promotion to Liga Alef at the end of the 2024/25 season, and by the end of March 2026 had gone up again, securing a return to Liga Leumit for the first time in over a decade.
On the podcast, Sabag described the current men's squad — the one he calls "my baby" — as "young and good, with some experienced veterans and foreign players," and said he was confident the group would hold its own at the higher level this season.
One problem still trails the club's rise: it has no home ground. Kiryat Gat currently trains in the nearby town of Sha'arayim and plays its home fixtures in Rehovot. Sabag said work has now begun on a permanent solution, a new stadium in Kiryat Gat with roughly 6,000 seats.
He also addressed the women's side, which he oversees alongside the men's team. Several of Israel's leading female players have been leaving for soccer scholarships in the United States, Sabag said, including two of his own squad members. In response, the club has brought in Zohar Kaminski as the new coach, with Sabag saying he believes she can restore the team to championship contention.
For now, Kiryat Gat's growth and its search for a permanent home look set to remain Sabag's priority — even with a payday from Ramat Hasharon reportedly on the table.
