Last update - 00:00 27/06/2007
Soccer / Premier League / No money may mean no return for Bnei Sakhnin
By Ali Gali
Immediately after Bnei Sakhnin's 1-1 home draw against Hapoel Ashkelon on April 14, which guaranteed the home team's return to the Premier League after just one season in the National League, chairman Mazen Ghnaim was carried on the shoulders of fans and then made quite the speech.
"The Arab sector's representative has returned to its natural place, and will have many seasons in the Premier League," he declared. "Bnei Sakhnin belongs to the Arab sector and it will be united for all of the city's residents. We will not allow politics or clans to tarnish this achievement."
Only two months later, the wheel has turned. Right now, it is not at all clear whether Sakhnin will be able to play in the Premier League, because it does not yet have the minimum amount of money required - NIS 10 million. There are no invigorating players, there is no proper training ground, and even their savior, Arcadi Gaydamak, can no longer help. The Beitar Jerusalem owner, who donated NIS 2 million to the team in each of the last two seasons, is not allowed to provide funds to two teams that play in the same league. The giant picture of him at the promotion ball and the red carpet laid for him also did not help. He, by the way, did not show up at all.
The current reality is evident on Ghnaim's face, and that speech has taken on an ironic shade. If Sakhnin cannot meet the requirements, it will likely return to the National League. Who is at fault? On the one hand, clan politics, which has again hurt the team, and on the other, wealthy members of the Arab sector have turned their backs on the club.
"Ghnaim became responsible for the situation from the moment he publicly supported the Balad party, while the mayor, Mohammed Bashir, represents Hadash," says Samir Badarna, chairman of the team's fan club. "Therefore, Ghnaim cannot make a claim against anyone else. He is the one who made the city partisan, and his administration of the club is on an amateur level and not worthy of the Premier League. Maybe it would be worth his while to sell the club."
"I assure everyone lurking in the corner that we will not fail, and we will not drop down a league," responds an angry Ghnaim. "In the worst-case scenario, I'm prepared to sell two dunams of my own land to get the NIS 1.5 million that I'm missing. Bnei Sakhnin belongs to the citizens of the city and the entire Arab sector, and I'm not prepared to sell it to a private individual."
Surprisingly, even the highest professional authority at the club, coach Elisha Levi, is guardedly optimistic. "We will begin with the existing skeleton of a squad, and will try to strengthen it as we go along, because we have four places to fill," Levi says. "I hope that our financial situation will not deter players interested in coming to Sakhnin. The situation is not so simple, but I'm encouraging Ghnaim to look for sources of funding and not give up."
Then Levi begins to sound a little Zionistic. "During preparations for last season, during the war, we practiced on a field that was located inside a grove of olive trees. Players left and the Katyushas fell, and we qualified for the Premier League," he says. "I hope that the current difficult situation will lead us to a top place in the top division."
Not the way to build a stadium
Although financial crises have always plagued Bnei Sakhnin, that does not explain the problem with the training ground. Only a few months ago, a training ground was dedicated at a fancy ceremony in the presence of the donors, a delegation from Qatar.
It turns out, however, that the new field was built only with synthetic grass, there are no locker rooms, and the dimensions are not according to regulations, so the team's teen and youth squads cannot use it for their league matches. The senior squad has gone back to training at Kfar Yarca, a considerable expense and 30-kilometer ride away.
"We can have one or two training sessions [per week] on synthetic grass, but any more than that and the synthetic surface could hurt my players," Levi says.
"Whoever told you that the training ground was built specifically for Bnei Sakhnin?" asked Hamid Ghnaim, Sakhnin's sports department manager. "That is not true. The field was built for all of the city's soccer teams. And because we have so many teams and so many players, we had to build synthetic fields. As far as Bnei Sakhnin is concerned, they can conduct three training sessions on the synthetic grass, and they can take care of themselves for the others."
"We did not have enough land to increase the length of the practice area," city engineer Suleiman Uttman says. "Therefore, we did not build locker rooms, and that also determined the field's short dimensions. I believe that everything will be taken care of in the near future."
Bnei Sakhnin approached the municipality about the possibility of using Doha Stadium for training, but that request was also denied due to claims that the city wants to maintain the surface as much as possible for Premier League matches. So there is a big Doha and a little Doha, but Bnei Sakhnin practices at Yarca.