Football chiefs tell state attorney: "The feeling is that the state is abandoning us and the fans"

The leadership of Israeli football has gone over the head of the police and turned directly to the country's chief prosecutor, warning in blunt terms that the state is failing to protect the game from the violent minority attacking it.

Israel Football Association chairman Moshe "Shino" Zuaretz and Erez Kalfon, chairman of the Premier League management committee, sent an urgent joint letter to State Attorney Amit Eisman, according to ONE. Its central message, in their own words: "the feeling is that the state is abandoning us and the fans."

The letter followed an ugly opening round of the new Ligat Ha'al season. Outside Bloomfield Stadium after Maccabi Tel Aviv's win over Hapoel Jerusalem, a group of Maccabi fans attacked Hapoel Jerusalem supporters with clubs and tear gas. Days later, after Maccabi Netanya's match against Bnei Sakhnin, Netanya fans targeted the vehicles of Sakhnin players.

According to ONE, Zuaretz and Kalfon told the state attorney that law enforcement's response to both incidents has been inadequate — that suspects are being arrested but released without charges that carry any real deterrent effect, that indictments are not being filed with the necessary speed, and that the penalties eventually imposed are too light to change behaviour.

"The state cannot expect us to replace its role," the two wrote, according to the report, stressing that the football authorities have neither police powers nor the ability to prosecute the people responsible for the violence — only the state does.

The letter asks Eisman to instruct enforcement agencies to act swiftly against those involved in the disorder, to push for harsher penalties where warranted, and to convene an urgent meeting dedicated specifically to violence in and around Israeli stadiums.

The appeal comes just a week into the season, with the association's leadership signalling it is unwilling to wait for a repeat before pressing for action — a sign of how seriously Ligat Ha'al now views the opening weekend's disorder as a warning of what could follow if nothing changes.