Ironi Tiberias has spent 2026 lurching from one disciplinary crisis to the next, and now the club that finished directly behind it in the relegation battle wants the harshest possible outcome. Amit Hadad, the prominent Israeli lawyer representing F.C. Ashdod, said on ONE's Sicha HaYom programme that anything short of relegation for Tiberias would be an inadequate punishment.

"This wasn't done by mistake, it was done with malice," Hadad said of the club's conduct, arguing that the Israel Football Association's disciplinary court cannot treat the case as an isolated lapse given Tiberias's recent history.

The new case centres on a match-eve incident from three days before Tiberias faced Ashdod in a lower-playoff fixture on 3 May, which Tiberias won 3-0. According to the indictment reported by Haaretz, club officials arranged for players to receive intravenous saline infusions in quantities exceeding what is permitted without proper medical justification or qualified supervision — a breach of both Israel Football Association regulations and anti-doping rules. Ashdod was relegated from Ligat HaAl at the end of that campaign; Tiberias avoided the drop.

Hadad pointed to Tiberias's earlier scandal this year as evidence of a pattern rather than a one-off. In April, the club accepted a plea agreement over a separate case involving double contracts and falsified financial documents, under which it was docked eight points immediately, a further six points for 2026/27, fined 500,000 shekels and barred from registering players in January 2027. "They already had double contracts and forged documents," Hadad said, noting that penalty proved too lenient to deter further wrongdoing.

Ashdod has now filed an urgent application with the Football Association's disciplinary court to join the infusions case as an interested party. The club is asking for the proceedings to be fast-tracked to a ruling before the new season opens, for interim measures blocking Tiberias from registering players in the meantime, and for a guarantee that no settlement can be reached without Ashdod first being heard on any sanction.

Hadad framed the scale of the alleged scheme — described in the indictment as involving a dozen one-litre IV bags procured through outside parties, along with alleged pressure on players and later attempts to tamper with evidence — as without precedent in Israeli football. He said the Football Association's disciplinary court is due to hear the matter within days, with the 2026/27 Ligat HaAl season set to kick off on 22 August.

Tiberias has previously pushed back on the double-contracts allegations, insisting the club's financial reporting did not amount to wrongdoing, though that dispute ultimately ended in the accepted plea deal. The club has not yet issued a detailed public response to the infusions indictment covered in this report.

For Ashdod, the stakes go well beyond principle. The club argues it suffered direct competitive and financial harm from results against a Tiberias side it alleges was gaining an unlawful edge in matches that shaped the relegation picture — including the very fixture at the heart of the new case.