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Soccer / Fired by SMS, former Bnei Sakhnin coach Freddy David shoots back By Moshe Boker Bnei Sakhnin fired coach Freddy David Saturday night by text message. Now he's taking the opportunity to fire back at the management of the club, the perpetual underdog from the north that has managed to remain in Israel's top tier despite its decidedly lower-tier budget and infrastructure. Sitting at home on Monday, he tried to understand what he had done to deserve such treatment. Last year he brought them to a respectable fourth place in the Premier League, despite then-owner Mazen Ghanaim's decision to jump ship and run for Sakhnin mayor, and despite a scandal in March involving players stealing thousands of dollars in fragrances from the duty-free shop at Ben-Gurion airport. Still, the writing appears to have been on the wall regarding David's release, and only he seems to have failed to read it. Advertisement Since you were released on Saturday you haven't spoken out. Are you hurt? "It's hard to argue with results, and our results weren't great, but you couldn't do more at Sakhnin than I did. Mazen Ghanaim asked me to bring Sakhnin to tenth place. He knows that after last year's fourth place finish, it's impossible with the conditions there, with the budget and management, to do more than just hold on to the Premier League spot." That's why no other manager was particularly thrilled to coach there, aside from you. "Because I'm the kind of guy with the personality of a winner, I always believe we can win anywhere and in any situation. I believed I'd be successful at Sakhnin as well. Mazen's run for mayor was a significant consideration in the management's decision. If not for the elections, I don't believe I would have been fired." How much did the airport theft scandal hurt you? "Very much. From a morale perspective, we took a hard hit. All six players involved took the publicity and the investigation hard. Some of the players' families still don't accept them, and the father of one of them doesn't talk to him to this day. The families saw their behavior as a slight to our image and tradition." When asked why he did not release the names of the players involved, David turns surprisingly political. "I couldn't release the names of the Sakhnin players. There were elections." Are you frustrated you didn't get to a bigger club? "Disappointed. Frustrated is too big a word. I look upward. If that's what fate has in store, I welcome it." You know that just like at Sakhnin, big clubs have no small amount of constraints and pressure. "They pay coaches a lot of money at big clubs to put up with the pressure." Bookmark to del.icio.us   A ringing endorsement Jimmy Carter says Obama will waste no time in pursuing Middle East peace. Peres' olive branch Israel's president says the Arab peace plan is an opening for progress.

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