Four Israeli soccer team officials arrested on suspicion of ‘systematic’ fraud

Four officials from an Israeli Premier League soccer team were arrested Sunday on suspicion of fraud and corruption offenses, according to a joint statement from Israel Police, the Tax Authority and the Justice Ministry.

The four are suspected of “systematic” counterfeiting, money laundering, fraud, and failure to report players’ salaries to tax authorities over the course of four seasons.

The suspects were identified in Hebrew media reports as current and former officials with Ironi Tiberias FC, which is currently in 14th place at the bottom of the premier league.

Law enforcement officials seized real estate and luxury cars as part of the investigation, according to the statement, which said “the scale of the crimes” amounted to tens of millions of shekels.

The arrests and seizures follow a months-long undercover investigation conducted in cooperation with the Israel Football Association, the national governing body for soccer, the statement said.

The National Unit for Combating Economic Crime, a part of the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes division, will summon for questioning dozens of current and former players from the team in the coming days as part of the investigation, the statement added.

Adi Carmeli, an attorney representing some of the suspects, said in a statement that “it is a great shame that before the detainees even reached the Lahav site and had not been told the suspicions against them, the police already rushed to publish everything in the media.”

The Sport 1 website cited an unnamed player with Ironi Tiberias FC as saying that he and his teammates were “not surprised” by the developments.

“We understand that we will also be questioned soon,” the player said.

According to the outlet, players have been discussing among themselves whether the case will impact payment of their salaries and whether they will be asked to seek transfers to other teams.

Team officials are to speak with the players later in the day in an effort to keep them focused on playing soccer, the outlet said.

It was the latest in a series of scandals that have rocked the Israeli soccer world in recent years.

Last month, three former soccer players, two men and a woman, were arrested on suspicion of being behind a match-fixing scheme in order to make money from a gambling operation.

In June, police arrested a professional soccer player on suspicion of gambling, fixing games, and other financial crimes as part of his alleged ties to a gang in northern Israel.

In January, 17 people affiliated with soccer team FC Kiryat Yam, in Israel’s second-tier league, were arrested in a match-fixing and money laundering probe.

Last season, FC Kiryat Yam was promoted to the National League when the League A North was dissolved due to a major match-fixing scandal.

An investigation into that affair was called after Fadi Mahamid, director of the Umm al-Fahm youth team, admitted to having fixed 13 games in the League A North during the 2023-2024 season. He gave a full confession, providing items to support his testimony as well as information about others involved in rigging games.