Israel’s Beitar Jerusalem soccer fan club has been struggling for some time against a small core group of racist, violent fans. Over the years, these fans have been fighting efforts to bring Arab or Muslim players into the club. Businessman Moshe Hogeg, who acquired the club two years ago, decided to ramp up the struggle against the racists, most of whom belong to an organized group called La Familia. In June 2019, Al-Monitor reported that Hogeg signed up a player from Niger called Ali Mohamed. This process met fierce opposition from La Familia, but Hogeg was adamant, and Beitar’s first Mohamed was well absorbed in the group and became a central player in the team.
However, that was not the end of the story. Following the normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, connections were made between entities in the sports and business world. The most interesting imminent deal is the one discussed with an Abu Dhabi investor, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family, to acquire some of the ownership of Beitar Jerusalem. Khalifa's investment company is active in the sports sphere in other places around the world.
On Dec. 3, Hogeg landed in Dubai together with Eli Ohana, chairman of the club and one of its former stars who still has much influence over the fans. They already met with Khalifa and negotiations are taking place regarding the acquisition of 49% of Beitar Jerusalem; Hogeg still wants to remain the controlling shareholder of the team. According to some reports, the deal might be concluded as early as Dec. 8.
La Familia, for its part, isn’t throwing in the towel. At the beginning of the week, they covered the Teddy Stadium — Beitar’s home turf — with hate graffiti, including "F--- DUBAI" and “Mohamed is Dead.” Beitar representatives hurried to erase the graffiti. On Dec. 4, about 100 fans of the group appeared on Beitar’s training field to protest the emerging deal. They broke through the fence, penetrated the field and forced the training session to stop. The fans cursed Hogeg, lambasted him with racial epithets, shouted to the players “Wear a keffiyeh already” and sang “Mohamed is Dead” and “F--- you Khalifa.” However, they focused their racist curses and snarls on player Ali Mohamed, Beitar’s first soccer player with that name. The Jerusalem Beitar representatives called the police and the security guards expelled the fans from the site.
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