Hours before Hapoel Tel Aviv kicked off the second leg of their Conference League qualifier in Katowice, the club found itself under a very different kind of attack — not from the opponents on the pitch, but from the owner of an entirely different Polish club who has made a habit of using football to needle Israel.
Alex Haditaghi, the Iranian-Canadian businessman who owns top-flight Polish side Pogoń Szczecin, published an inflammatory social media post on the eve of Wednesday's match, branding Hapoel Tel Aviv, in his words, as representing "the genocidal Israeli state and the wicked Zionist system behind it," according to ONE.
Haditaghi went further, writing that Israel "should not receive any rights to privilege and legitimacy in UEFA competitions while it commits occupation," and arguing that "Israel is not a European country — it is geographically located in Asia." He also accused the United States, Germany, Britain and France of shielding Israel from consequences in international football, ONE reported.
Haditaghi has no official connection to Katowice, the actual opponents in Wednesday's tie, but he addressed the club's players directly in the post, urging them to turn the match into "a political statement" and to play with enough intensity to make the stadium "shake." He signed off, per ONE, with "Free Palestine. Long live Iran."
The Israel Football Association reacted swiftly. Chairman Shino (Moshe) Zuaretz, who also sits on UEFA's executive committee, called the post "a revolting, distorted and inciting text of racism, vulgarity, lies and incitement," adding that "there is no place in football for people so dark." Zuaretz instructed the federation's legal department to file an official complaint against Haditaghi with UEFA, saying he was confident the governing body would "administer justice."
It is not the first time Haditaghi has used his platform to target Israeli football. In June, he refused to negotiate the sale of two Pogoń Szczecin players, Dimitrios Keramitsis and Leo Borges, to Maccabi Tel Aviv, comparing doing business with an Israeli club to trading with Nazi Germany. Pogoń also staged a pitch-side statement on Gaza before a domestic match against Lechia Gdańsk last September.
The row lands in the middle of a live European tie. Hapoel Tel Aviv won the first leg 2-0 on August 6 at a neutral venue in Miskolc, Hungary — the security arrangement clubs travelling to face Israeli opposition have used before. Katowice, appearing in UEFA competition for the first time in the club's history, reached this stage by beating Slovakia's Žilina after a 1-2 first-leg loss and a 3-1 home win.
Wednesday's return leg kicks off at 19:00 local time in Katowice, with Hapoel Tel Aviv holding a two-goal cushion from the first leg. UEFA had not responded publicly to the Israeli federation's complaint at the time of writing.
