Ironi Tiberias has opened a new front in its long-running battle with Israeli football's disciplinary machinery — this time aimed not at a judge, but at the Israel Football Association's own spokesman.
Club attorney Kobi Levi sent a sharply worded warning letter to the IFA this week, ONE reports, accusing spokesman Shlomi Barzel of behaving as "an arbiter, judge and executioner" over public comments he made about a fresh indictment filed against Tiberias barely a day earlier.
That indictment, lodged around July 27, centres on allegations that club officials arranged improper intravenous infusions for players before a bottom-of-the-table relegation playoff against Ashdod last season — reportedly more than the permitted 100 millilitres of saline solution, administered in what prosecutors allege breached IFA bylaws on assisting the use of drugs and stimulants "in aggravated circumstances."
According to ONE, Levi's letter took particular issue with Barzel invoking an entirely separate case while the new charges remain untested. "We had evidence and because of the war we decided to give up. Ultimately 14 league points, the harshest penalty," Barzel was quoted as saying — a reference to Tiberias's earlier disciplinary saga over so-called double contracts.
That case ended in a plea deal approved by the IFA's disciplinary tribunal on April 1, with Tiberias accepting an eight-point deduction with immediate effect and six more in the coming season, a fine of 500,000 shekels payable in seven instalments, and a ban on registering new players from the January 2027 window. Club owner Miki Bitan was separately barred from all football activity for seven years, beginning June 1.
Levi's letter argues that citing that 14-point precedent while a new, unrelated indictment is pending amounts to prejudging Tiberias's guilt before the case has been heard — a breach, he wrote, of the presumption of innocence. It formally demands a public clarification that the club remains innocent until proven otherwise, a retraction of Barzel's remarks, and confirmation of whether the spokesman's comments reflect the IFA's official position or his own.
The club has given the association until next Tuesday to respond — one day before a scheduled hearing on Tiberias's legal standing in the new case, with Levi noting that the indictment "has only just been filed."
Tiberias has separately dismissed the substance of the new charges. In a statement carried by Walla Sport, the club called the indictment "a document full of assumptions... without solid facts and evidence," insisting prosecutors have no scientific documentation of the quantities involved and are relying instead on "conservative assumptions and average calculations." The club also alleged the investigation was marred by bias and procedural failures, including a failure to properly question key officials.
With Tiberias already facing a six-point deduction and a transfer ban carried into the new season from the double-contracts case, any further sanction from the new indictment threatens to leave the club fielding what it has itself warned could be an under-strength side. Wednesday's hearing looks set to be the first real test of how the IFA's disciplinary court handles the case — and how much weight, if any, it gives to the war of words now breaking out around it.
