Due to a radius penalty because of fan disturbance at the match against Hapoel Beer Sheva (lighting a smoke bomb), the Club looked for an appropriate stadium to host the upcoming Toto Cup game against Maccabi Petach Tikva. Since the Moshava Stadium would be unavailable because of the Israel Football Association regulation stating that a club can’t host a match in the opposing team’s home stadium, alternatives were looked at both in north and the south of the country.
Since the Club has a busy schedule including European matches on Thursday evenings, Maccabi looked to find a solution to the issue. The Akko stadium is hosting Hapoel Haifa and Bnei Sakhnin, Sammy Ofer is still on the reseeding process and Teddy Stadium is also working on making their pitch playable forcing them to play Ashdod at Rishon Le’Zion.
In addition, Kfar Saba and Ramat Gan do not have proper certifications and the Beer Sheva Stadium management refused to allow Maccabi host their match there as well.
Due to the shortage of available stadiums in Israel, the Club had no choice but to appeal to the Supreme Court to change the penalty from a radius match to a match without fans.
